scarlet. "How you frightened me! Pray walk in. I did not expect
you. I--I--am mending father's coat."

"Yes, I see," he answered, offering her his hand after he had greeted
her father with his most graceful, courtly manner. "I see you are. I
wonder now if you are doing it well. I used to have some experience in
such matters when I was roughing it in Australia. I am a beautiful
darner; let me try my hand, please;" and taking the coat from her before
she had time to recover from her astonishment, he seated himself upon a
chair and began industriously to ply the needle, while Bessie looked on
amazed.

"You see I am quite a tailor," he said, pushing his thick brown hair
back from his white forehead, and flashing upon her one of those rare
smiles with which he always obtained the mastery and made friends even
of his enemies.

How charming he was, and he never seemed to see the humble room, the
faded carpet, the dingy oil-cloth, or the coarse hair-cloth furniture
which had offended Neil and made him call the place a hole. Of course,
Jack did see them all; he could not help that, but he acted as if he had
all his life been accustomed to just such surroundings, and was so
familiar and affable that both Bessie and her father were more charmed
with him than on the previous day.

"By the way," he said at last, when the coat was mended and approved, "I
met Neil at the station; he had been here, I suppose?"

"Yes," Bessie replied, a painful flush suffusing her cheeks as she
recalled what her father had said of Neil.

"I am half afraid he has forestalled me, then," Jack continued. "I came
to ask you and your father to drive with me in the park this afternoon;
that is, if Neil is not ahead of me."

"Oh, Mr. Trevellian," Bessie cried, turning her bright face to him,
while the glad tears sprang to her eyes, and she forgot that until
yesterday she did not know there was such a person as this elegant man
making himself so much at home with them; forgot everything except the
pleasure it would be to drive with her father in Hyde Park, and "be one
of them," as she expressed it to herself.

"Then Neil has not asked you, and you will go with me?" Jack said,
addressing himself to Archie, who replied:

"If Bessie likes--yes; and I thank you so much. You are giving my
little girl a greater pleasure than you can ever guess."

Meanwhile the color had all faded from Bessie's face, leaving it very
pale, as she stood with clasped hands and