e even for a day was a heavy drain
on Bessie's purse. But Grey's quick ear caught Bessie's whispered words,
and before he entered the warm, pretty room at the head of the stairs he
knew it belonged to her, and guessed why she had given it to him. Under
any circumstances he would have known by certain unmistakable signs that
it was a young girl's apartment into which he was ushered, and after
Neil left him he looked about him with a kind of awe at the
chintz-covered furniture, the white curtains at the window, and the
pretty little toilet table with its hanging glass in the center, and its
coverings of pink and white muslin.

Just then, through the door, which had inadvertently been left a little
ajar, he caught the sound of voices in the hall below, Neil's voice and
Bessie's and Neil was saying to her, disapprovingly:

"Why did you give your room to Grey? Was it necessary?"

"Yes, Neil; there was no other comfortable place for him; the north room
is so large and the chimney smokes so we could never get it warm,"
Bessie said, and Neil continued:

"And so you are to sleep there and catch your death-cold?"

"Not a bit of it," Bessie replied. "Dorothy will warm the bed with her
big warming-pan and I shall not mind it in the least. I am never cold."

"Well, I think it a shame!" Neil said, feeling more annoyed that Grey
was to sleep in Bessie's room, than that Bessie was to pass the night in
the great, cheerless north chamber with only old Dorothy's warming-pan
for comfort.

But it never occurred to him that he could give Grey his room and
himself take the cold and the dreariness of the north room, nor yet that
he could share his bed with Grey. He never thought for others when the
thinking conflicted with himself, and returning to the dining-room he
sat down by the fire with anything but a happy expression on his face,
as he wished that he had not invited Grey to Stoneleigh.

Something in the expression of Bessie's and Grey's faces as they looked
at each other had disturbed him, for he had read undisguised admiration
in the one, and confidence and trust in the other, and knew that there
were already sympathy and accord between them, and that they were sure
to be fast friends at least, just as he had told himself he wished them
to be.

Meanwhile Grey was thinking, as he made his toilet for supper, and as a
result of his thoughts he at last rang the bell which brought old
Dorothy to him.

"My good woman," he said, f