demanded payment for four dozen towels which he said had been ruined,
she insisted upon taking the towels, which she said were hers, if she
paid for them. Never had portier or clerk encountered such a tempest as
she proved to be, and they finally surrendered the field and let her
have her own way, shrugging their shoulders significantly, as they
called her "_la petite diable Irelandaise_."

It was old Mrs. Meredith who furnished the necessary funds, for there
was no time to send to England. Neil telegraphed to his father, asking
him to go down to Stoneleigh and meet them on their arrival with the
body. But the Hon. John was suffering with the gout, and only Anthony
and Dorothy were there, when Neil and Flossie and Bessie came, the
latter utterly exhausted and unable to sit up a moment after entering
the house. So they took her to her old room, which Dorothy had made as
comfortable and pleasant as she could; and there Bessie lay, weak as a
little child, while the kind neighbors came again and stood in the
yew-shaded cemetery where Daisy was buried and where there was room for
no more of the McPhersons.

"Now what?" Flossie said to Neil, when the burial was over and they sat
alone in the parlor; "now what are you going to do?" and when he
answered, gloomily, "I am sure I don't know," she flashed her black eyes
upon him and replied: "You don't know? Then let me tell you; marry
Bessie at once. What else can you do? Surely you will not leave her here
alone?"

"I know I ought not to leave her here," Neil said, despondingly. "But I
cannot marry her now."

"Why not?" Flossie asked him sharply, and he replied:

"I cannot marry her and starve, as we surely should do. I have no means
of my own, and mother would turn me from her door if I brought her
Bessie as my wife. As it is, I dread going to her with all these heavy
bills. It was a foolish thing to bring Mrs. McPherson home, and I said
so at the time. That woman has been a curse to every one with whom she
ever came in contact."

"Oh, mamma, poor mamma, I wish I, too, were dead, as you are," moaned,
or rather gasped a little white-faced girl who was standing just outside
the door, and had heard all Neil was saying.

Bessie had remained upstairs as long as she could endure it, and when
she heard voices in the parlor and knew that Neil and Flossie were
there, she arose, and, putting on a dressing-gown and shawl, crept down
stairs to go to them. But Flossie's question arres