and would suit
each other exactly. You are so quiet, she so wild and frolicsome. Let me
bring her to see you this summer."

"I am sure I should be so glad if you would," Bessie said, and then Jack
went away, promising to write her from London, whither he was first
going.

And in a few days his letter came, saying he had learned that Neil had
gone to Moscow with a party, and so his silence and absence were
explained.

"I wrote him a savage letter," he said, "and shall have to apologize
for it when I see him, I dare say you will hear from him ere long.
Remember, I am coming again to Stoneleigh very soon.

"Always your friend,

"JACK TREVELLIAN."

Bessie's heart beat rapidly as she read this letter, and comprehended
its meaning; but she was true to Neil and waited patiently for the
letter she knew was sure to come as soon as he heard of her trouble.

Two weeks went by, and then one lovely July day Jack came again, and
sitting with her on the bench in the garden where her father once sat
and made love to Daisy, he told her first of his home with its
wide-spreading pastures, its lovely views, its terraces and banks of
flowers, and of Irish Flossie, who cried so hard because she must give
up this home and go back to her old house by the wild Irish sea, with
only a cross grandmother for company.

"And so, Bessie," he said, "I have come to ask you to be my wife, and
make both Flossie and myself the happiest people in England. It is too
soon after your father's death to speak of love and marriage, perhaps;
but under the circumstances I trust you will forgive me, and believe it
is no hasty step with me. I think I have loved you since the day I first
saw you in the park and looked into your bright face, the fairest and
truest I ever saw. Flossie is beautiful and sweet and good, and makes
one think of a playful kitten, which you wish to capture and caress
awhile and then release before you get a spit and scratch; but you,
Bessie, are my ideal of a woman, and I could make you so happy. Think
what it would be to have no care or thought for the morrow, to do
nothing but rest, and you need it so much. You are so tired and worn,
and up there among the hills you would grow strong, and I would surround
you with every comfort and make you a very queen. Will you come, Bessie?
Will you be my wife? and when I ask _you_ to share my home I do not mean
to exclude your mother. She shall be welcome there for your sak