Owing to Grey's tact, the interview was tolerably free from embarrassment, though in Neil's heart there was a wild tumult of conflicting emotions, as he stood with Bessie again face to face, and heard her well remembered voice.
How lovely she was in her young, happy wifehood, with the tired, care-worn look gone from her sweet face, where only the light of perfect joy and peace was shining.
Grey, who, without being in the least a prig, was something of a connoisseur in the details of dress, had delighted to adorn his bride with everything which could enhance her beauty, and Bessie wore her plumage well, and there was a most striking contrast between the girl of fifteen, who, in her washed linen gown and faded ribbons, had once stood up in the park waving her handkerchief to Neil, and the young matron of twenty, who, clad in a faultless dinner dress, with diamonds in her ears and on her fingers, went forward to meet her cousin. And Neil recognized the difference, and felt himself growing both hot and cold by turns as he took the hand extended to him, and looked down upon the little lady, whom, but for her bright face and clear, innocent blue eyes, he would scarcely have known, so complete was the transformation. For a moment Neil felt as if he preferred the old linen, with its puffed sleeves and antiquated appearance, to the shimmer of the fawn-colored satin, with its facings of delicate blue, and the flush of the solitaires; but, as he watched her moving about the elegant rooms and discharging her duties as hostess just as kindly and thoughtfully as she had done at Stoneleigh, where the china was cracked and the silver was old, he said to himself, that the transformation was such as it should be, and that satins and diamonds, though out of place on little Bessie McPherson, of Stoneleigh, were fitting adornments for Mrs. Grey Jerrold, of Boston. He had called her Bessie, as of old, and the repeating the dear name to her, and seeing the quick, responsive smile and questioning glance he knew so well, nearly unmanned him, and raised within him such a tempest of love, and remorse, and regret for what he had lost, that it required all his fortitude and will not to break down entirely, and to seem natural and at ease during the dinner, to which Grey had invited him, and which was served in the private parlor.
Half an hour or more after dinner a servant brought in a card with Jack Trevellian's name upon it, and in a moment Jack was with them, shaking hands cordially with both Grey and Bessie, and appearing as much at his ease as he did in the park when he first saw the latter and told her who the people were, while she, a shy country girl, looked on wonderingly and made her quaint remarks. She did not look like a country girl now, and Jack's eyes followed her admiringly as she moved around the room, with a faint flush on her cheeks and a very little shyness perceptible in her manner. Once, when standing near her, he put a hand on either shoulder, and looking down into her face said to her: "Do you know, Mrs. Jerrold how nearly my heart was broken when I thought you were dead, and that for months the brightness of my life seemed blotted out. But it is all right now, and I am glad for you that you are Grey Jerrold's wife. You will be very happy with him."