ood wife, and wanted to know her news. She
gave it freely, and then they were at the end of the pier, and there was
the Hampton boat ringing its bell to start. "Are you going straight
home? Will you tell them at once?" Bessie ventured to say again as Mr.
Wiley went down the gangway.

"Yes. I expect to find the carriage waiting for me at Hampton," was the
response.

"They might even come by the afternoon boat," cried Bessie as a last
word, and the rector said, "Yes."

It was with a lightened heart and spirits exhilarated that Bessie
retraced her steps up the pier. "It was such a good opportunity!" said
she, congratulating herself.

"Yes, if the gentleman don't forget," rejoined Mrs. Betts.

But, alas! that was just what the gentleman did. He forgot until his
remembering was too late to be of any purpose. He forgot until the next
Sunday when he was in the reading-desk, and saw Mrs. Carnegie sitting in
front of him with a restless boy on either hand. He felt a momentary
compunction, but that also, as well as the cause of it, went out of his
head with the end of his sermon, and the conclusion of the matter was
that he never delivered the message Bessie had given him on Ryde pier at
all.

Bessie, however, having a little confidence in him, unwittingly enjoyed
the pleasures of hope all that day and the next. On the second evening
she was a trifle downhearted. The morning after she awoke with another
prospect before her eyes--a beautiful bay, with houses fringing its
shores and standing out on its cliffs, and verdure to the water's edge.
Mrs. Betts told her these villages were Sandown and Shanklyn. The yacht
was scudding along at a famous rate. They passed Luccombe with its few
cottages nestling at the foot of the chine, then Bonchurch and Ventnor.
"It would be very pleasant living at sea in fine weather, if only one
had what one wants," Bessie said.

The following day the yacht was off Ryde again, and Bessie went to walk
on the pier in her close-fitting serge costume and glazed hat, feeling
very barefaced and evident, she assured Mrs. Betts, who tried to
convince her that the style of dress was exceedingly becoming to her,
and made her appear taller. Bessie was, indeed, a very pretty middle
height now, and her shining hair, clear-cut features, and complexion of
brilliant health constituted her a very handsome girl.

Almost the first people she met were the Gardiners. "Mr. Cecil Burleigh
went to London this morning,"