Bessie's Fortune

"'I might do worse,' he said, and then walked away, and that afternoon took Mrs. Browne and Augusta over to Villefranche.

"Ted is very much changed from the boy whom I smuggled into the play-room at Monte Carlo as my Cousin Susan, and I can't get him near there now. It seems that he lost a great deal of money one night, and actually left the Casino with the intention to kill himself. But he had not the courage to do it, though he told me he put the muzzle of the pistol to his forehead, when a thought of his mother stayed his hand and the suicide was prevented. She was in heaven, he said, and he wanted to see her again. If he killed himself he knew he should not, and so he concluded to live, but made a vow never to play again, and he has kept it and become almost as big a spoony as Jack Trevellian. By the way, I saw Trevellian the other day, and when I said something about hoping to pay him his ten pounds soon, he told me you had paid it. Very kind in you, I am sure, but I don't see where you got the money. You might have kept it, as he would never have pressed me for it, and I could not pay it if he did. My rooms cost me so much that I never have a shilling to spare, and I do not go to Monte Carlo often, for these Rossiter-Brownes profess to be very religious people--Baptists, I believe--and hold gambling in great abhorrence, so, as I wish to stand well with them I have to play on the sly, or not at all. They have a house in New York and another in the country somewhere, and a cottage at the sea-side; and they have a maid and a courier, and Mrs. Rossiter-Browne talks as familiarly with both of them as she does with me, and I think feels more at ease in their society than in mine. But she is a good woman, and since commencing this letter I have decided to accept her invitation and accompany her to America. They sail the last week in June, and I shall manage to spend a few days at Stoneleigh before I go. How is your father? Write me soon, and if you can do so please send me a pound or two. I have so very little; and I had to borrow of Ted, who, I must say, loaned me rather unwillingly, I thought, while Trevellian, whom I tried cautiously, never took the hint at all. It must be I am going off and have not the same power over the men which I once had; and yet Mrs. Rossiter-Browne told me the other day that I was called the prettiest woman in Nice, and said she was very proud to have me of her party. What a fool she is, to be sure!"