Bessie's Fortune

"The work is not hard," she wrote. "It requires more thought, and judgment, and tact, than anything else, but it will bring you in contact with some very second-class people--scum, if you choose to call them so--and with some of the excellent of the earth as well for all grades are represented in the mills, and for what I know, the future Governor of Massachusetts is working there to-day; but if he is, you may be sure he has a book somewhere around and studies it every chance he gets, for in this way our best men are made. If you do not choose to take my offer, I shall do nothing for you, and Bessie will be a fool to marry one who does not care enough for her to be willing to work and support her. I have no intention of making her my heir. My will is made, and I do not often change my mind. Still, I have a fancy for the girl--have always had a fancy for her, and if you bring her to me on the terms I offer, you will never be sorry."

This last Miss Betsey wrote because of the desire which kept growing in her heart as once it had before, to look again in Bessie's face, to hear her voice, to feel the touch of her hands; and in short, to have some one to love and be interested in, as something told her she could be interested in and love Bessie McPherson.

The letter was sent to Neil, and the same mail took another to a well-known banking house in London with which Miss McPherson had business relations. To this house she gave instructions that the sum of one hundred pounds should at once be forwarded to Archibald McPherson, who was not on any account to know from whom the money came.

When her letters were gone she began again to build castles with regard to Bessie, whom she was expecting, in spite of her lack of confidence in Neil's willingness to accept her offer.

In fancy she furnished the large stone house on the cliff above the mills, which Bessie was to occupy, and furnished it with no sparing hand. In fancy she climbed the sleep steps every day, and went in and out with the freedom of a mother, for such she meant to be to the young couple, both her own blood, and both seeming very near to her now when there was a chance of their coming to her and dispelling the loneliness of her monotonous life. But she kept her expectations to herself, not even telling them to Lucy Grey, or Hannah Jerrold, her most intimate friends, both of whom noticed a change in her, but did not guess why she seemed so much more cheerful and happy, or why she was so often in Worcester, inquiring the prices of china and glassware, and household furniture generally.