Bessie's Fortune

The next day five hundred dollars were placed in the Allington Savings Bank to the credit of Bessie McPherson Bowen, and the spinster washed her hands of the whole affair, as she expressed it to herself. But she could not quite forget the child, and when on the Monday evening after the christening she sat by her open fire with her round tea table at her side, there was a thought of it in her mind, and she said to herself: "I am glad I did not give it my name. Betsey is not very poetical, and they are sure to call you Bets when they are angry at you. Bessie is better and sweeter every way."

And then her thoughts went over the sea after that other Bessie, her own flesh and blood, of whom she had not heard in years. It was very seldom that her brother John wrote to her, and when he did he never mentioned Archie or his family, and so she knew nothing of them except that Daisy was still carrying on her business at Monte Carlo and was known as an adventuress to every frequenter of the place. But where was Bessie? Miss McPherson asked herself, us she gazed dreamily into the fire. Was she like her mother, a vain coquette and a mark for coarse jests and vulgar admiration?

"For the girl must be pretty," she said, "There was the promise of great beauty in that face, and true, pure womanhood, too, if only she were well brought up."

And then through the woman's heart there shot a pang as she wondered if she had done right to leave Archie and his child to their poverty all these years. Might she not have done something for them, and so perhaps have saved the daughter from sin? The little room at the head of the stairs was still kept just as it was when she was expecting Bessie. There was the big doll in the corner, the dishes on the shelf, and the single bed with its lace hangings was freshly made every month, and by its side each night the lonely woman knelt and prayed for the little girl who had come to her on the sands and looked into her eyes with a look which had haunted her ever since. But of what avail was all this? Ought she not to have acted as well as prayed? What was faith without works, and if Bessie had gone to destruction, as most likely she had, was it not in part her fault? Such were the questions tormenting Miss McPherson when at last Winny came in to remove the tea things and brought with her a letter, which she gave into her mistress' hand. It was Neil's letter, and Miss Betsey examined it very carefully before opening it, wondering who had written her from London, and experiencing a feeling that its contents would not prove altogether agreeable. Adjusting her spectacles a little more firmly on her nose, she opened it at last, and read it through very slowly, taking in its full meaning as she read, and commenting to herself in her characteristic way.