atured kind of a girl and played splendidly. And then he
remembered with a pang that Bessie did not play at all, except simple
accompaniments to songs, and found himself wondering in a vague kind of
way what people would say to a Mrs. Neil McPherson who had no
accomplishments except a sweet voice for ballad singing and a tolerable
knowledge of French and German, which she had picked up when a child
leading a Bohemian life on the Continent. Bessie was neither learned,
nor accomplished, nor fashionable; but she was good and pure and
beautiful, and Neil loved her with all the intensity of his selfish
nature, and meant to be true to her. He wrote to her, three times a
week, long letters, full of love and tenderness, and of Grey Jerrold,
with whom he corresponded.

Once he tried to tell his mother of his engagement. She had been
speaking to him of Blanche, talking as if everything were settled, and
asking why it were not as well to announce the engagement at once.

"Because," Neil said to her, "I am not engaged to Blanche, and do not
know that I ever shall be. To tell you the truth, mother, I love my
Cousin Bessie better than any woman living, and if I had money of my own
I would marry her to-morrow."

This was a great deal for Neil to say, knowing his mother as he did, and
possibly he might not have said it could he have foreseen the storm
which followed his declaration. What she had once before said to him
upon the subject was nothing when compared with her present anger and
scorn, as she assured him again and again that if he married Bessie
McPherson, she would at once cut off his allowance and leave him to
shirk for himself. That was the way she expressed it, for she could be
very coarse in her language at times, even if she were a titled lady.
Bessie should never enter her house as her daughter-in-law, she said,
and she would not only cut off Neil's allowance during her life, but at
her death would leave what little money she had to some one else--Jack
Trevellian, perhaps, who would represent the family far better than her
scapegrace son, with his low McPherson tastes.

After this Neil could not tell her. On the contrary, he bent every
energy to keep the secret from her, and never again mentioned Bessie or
Stoneleigh in her presence, but devoted himself to Blanche in a
friendly, brotherly kind of way, which kept the peace in that quarter
and left him in quiet. But his thoughts were busy with plans for the
future, wh