Bessie's face was scarlet as she answered: "I was engaged to him then; I am not now."
"Did he break it, or you?" was the next question.
"I broke it," was the low response.
"Why?" came next from Miss McPherson, and Bessie replied: "He did not wish me to come as steerage, and bade me choose between that and him; and as I must come, and had no money for a first-class ticket, I gave him back the ring, and he was free."
"Are you sorry?"
This was spoken sharply, and Miss McPherson's little round, black eyes rested curiously upon Bessie, who answered promptly: "No, oh, no. I am very glad. It is better so. We were not suited to each other."
"I should think not!" and again the strange woman arose, and going to the window, opened it, as if in sudden heat.
Then, returning to her niece, she continued: "Were you in earnest when you said you would take a position as housemaid?"
"Yes," was the reply; and Miss McPherson went on: "Do you think you could fill it?"
"I know I could, I have been housemaid at home all my life. We never kept any female servant but Dorothy."
There was a moment's silence, while Miss McPherson seemed to be thinking, and then she said: "Will you take that place with me?"
"With you?" Bessie repeated, a little bewildered; and her aunt replied: "Yes, with me. Why not? Better serve me than a stranger. My second girl, Sarah, was married a few weeks ago!--more fool she!--and I have no one as yet in her place. If you will like it, and fill it as well as she did, I will give you what I gave her, two dollars and a half a week, and more if you earn it. What do you say?"
"I will take the place," Bessie answered, unhesitatingly, feeling that, singular as it might seem to serve her aunt, she would rather do that than go to a stranger. "I will take the place, and do the best I can, and if I fail in some things at first, you will tell me what to do. How long will it take to earn two hundred and fifty-five pounds at two dollars and a half a week?"
Miss Betsey must have felt cold again, for she rushed to the open window and shut it with a bang, while for an instant she wavered in her determination. Then, thinking to herself, "I may as well see what stuff she really is made of," she returned to Bessie, who, if she had not been quite so anxious and nervous, would have felt amused at her eccentric behavior.