g her hands in my lap, looked up at
me with her wondering eyes and said:

"'I am Bessie McPherson, not Betsey.'

"'Weren't you christened Betsey?' I asked, and she replied:

"'Yes, but they never call me that. It's a horrid name, mamma says.'

"'Then why did she give it to you?' I said, and she answered with the
utmost gravity:

"'For some old auntie in America who has money; but she never sent me a
thing, nor answered papa's letter. I think she is mean, don't you?'

"I did not tell her what I thought of the old auntie, though I could not
repress a smile at her frankness, which pleased me more than
prevarication would have done.

"'Where is your papa?' I asked, and she replied:

"'At the Queen's Hotel, but it is awful expensive there, and papa says
we can't afford it much longer. But mamma says we must stay till she
finds some place to visit. There she is now, and that is Lord Hardy with
her; they are going over to the old ruins,' and she pointed to a young
woman in the distance, bedizened out in white muslin and blue ribbons,
with her yellow hair hanging down her back, and her big straw hat in her
hand instead of on her head; and she was talking and laughing and
coquetting with a short, spindle-legged chap, not much taller than
herself, and looking with his light curly hair and mustache like a
poodle-dog.

"'Who did you say he was?' I asked, and the child answered me:

"'Lord Hardy, mamma's friend. He is very rich and very nice. He gives me
lots of things, and sometimes buys us all first class tickets, and then
it is so grand. I don't like to go second-class, but, you see, papa is
very poor.'

"'How, then, can he afford to stop at expensive hotels?' I asked, and
she said, while a shadow came over her face:

"'We couldn't if we didn't have one small room on the top floor, where
I sleep on the lounge. I never go to _table d'hote_ but stay in my room
and eat whatever mamma can slip into her pocket without the waiters
seeing her. Sometimes it is not much, and then I am so hungry; but mamma
will get us an invitation to visit somebody soon, and then I can eat all
I want.'"

The guests had listened very attentively to this recital, and none more
so than Grey, who leaned eagerly forward, with quivering lips and
moistened eyes, as he exclaimed:

"Poor little girl, how I wish she had some of my dinner! Why didn't you
bring her home with you, away from her wicked mother?"

Miss McPherson did not reply, for ther