alone, with no
one to speak to all day long but Dorothy. Oh, mother, the loneliness is
so terrible and life is so dreary to me."

For a moment Daisy's heart was stirred with pity for the tired, worn
girl, and she half resolved to give up America and stay at home where
she was needed. But as the days went on and she saw just what life at
Stoneleigh meant, she felt that she could not endure it, and, fondly
stroking Bessie's hair and smoothing her pale cheek, she told her she
would not be gone long. She should return in September and would
positively remain at home all winter and take the care from Bessie.

"Your father will not die," she said. "People live years with his
disease; he is better than when I first came home; at least he is more
quiet, which is a gain."

And so Bessie gave it up and entered at last into her mother's
anticipations of her journey, and listened with some interest to what
she had to say of the Rossiter-Brownes, the best and most generous
people in the world, for they were not only to bear all her expenses to
and from America, but Mrs. Browne had given her a twenty-pound note for
any little expenditures necessary for her journey.

"I am sure I don't know why they fancy me as they seem to," Daisy said,
"unless they have an idea that I am a much more important personage than
I am, and that to take me home as their guest will raise them in the
estimation of their friends. They know the McPherson blood is good, and
they know about Lady Jane, who Mrs. Browne persists in thinking is my
sister-in-law. Did I tell you that the Rossiter-Brownes' old home is
near Allington, where your father's aunt is living?"

"No," Bessie replied, looking up with more interest in her manner.

"Well, it is," Daisy continued, "and I mean to beard the old woman in
her den and conquer a peace. She has heaps of money, the Brownes say,
and is greatly respected in spite of her oddities, and is quite an
aristocrat in the little place; and, as I suspect, is far above Mrs.
Rossiter-Browne, who wishes to show me to her. She does not guess how
the old woman hates us all."

And so Daisy rattled on with her small, tiresome talk, to which Bessie
sometimes listened and sometimes did not. The Rossiter-Brownes were in
Leamington now, but were coming through Wales on their way to Liverpool,
and Mrs. Browne and Augusta were to stop for a day or two at the
"George" and take Daisy with them when they left.

"I wish we could show them s