t."

"Yes, oh yes, of course," Neil said, feeling very awkward and uncertain
what to say next.

At last he asked, rather abruptly, if Bessie knew where Jack Trevellian
and Grey Jerrold were, saying he had never heard from either of them
since he was in Rome.

Bessie replied that Flossie had written that Sir Jack was somewhere in
the Bavarian Alps leading a kind of Bohemian life, and that he had
written to his steward at Trevellian Castle that he should not be home
until he had seen the Passion Play, then in process of presentation at
Oberammergau.

"He never writes Flossie," Bessie said; "neither does she know where Mr.
Jerrold is. She wrote to him at Venice, but he did net answer her
letter. Perhaps he has gone home."

Neil said it was possible, adding, that she would probably see him in
America, as his Aunt Lucy lived in Allington.

"But you are not to fall in love with him," he continued, laughingly.
"You are mine, and I shall come to claim you as soon as you write me you
have found that fortune you are going after. Do your best, little Bess,
and if you cannot untie the old maid's purse strings nobody can."

Bessie made no reply, but in her heart there was a feeling which boded
no good to Neil, who left her the next day, promising to come down to
Liverpool and see her off.

CHAPTER VI.

IN LIVERPOOL.

It was a steady down-pour, and the streets of Liverpool, always black
and dirty, looked dirtier and blacker than ever on the day when Neil
McPherson walked restlessly up and down the entrance hall of the
North-western Hotel, now scanning the piles of baggage waiting to be
taken to the Germanic, and then looking ruefully out upon the rain
falling so steadily.

"It is a dreary day for her to start, poor little girl. I wish I had
money of my own, and I would never let her go," he said to himself, as
he began to realize what it would be to have Bessie separated from him
the breadth of the great ocean.

Selfish and weak as we have shown Neil to be, he loved Bessie better
than he loved anything except himself, and there was a load on his heart
and a lump in his throat every time he thought of her. She was to sail
that afternoon at three, and he had come from London on the night
express to meet her and say good-by. His father, and mother, and Blanche
were staying at a gentleman's house, a few miles from the city, and he
was to join them there in the evening, and make one of a large
dinner-party given i