h several women were gathered with anxious concern upon
their faces.

CHAPTER IX.

BESSIE IS PROMOTED.

"She is took very bad, mum," one of the women said to Lucy, as she stood
aside to let her pass into the close, hot cabin, where Bessie was
talking wildly and incessantly of her father and mother, and of Grey,
while Mrs. Goodnough and Jennie tried in vain to quiet her.

"What is it? How long has she been this way?" Lucy asked, and the
voluble Jennie replied:

"An' sure, mum, just afther ye left it sthruck to her head, and she wint
out of herself intirely, and goes on awful about her father and mother,
who died in Rome with the faver and is buried in some stonehape or the
likes of it, and of Grey Jerry, who, she says, is on the ship and won't
come to her. An' sure, would ye be so kind as to try yerself what ye can
do?"

"Talking of Grey!" Lucy repeated, ten times more perplexed than she had
been before. "How does she know my nephew, and who is she?" Then,
turning to Mrs. Goodnough, she continued: "There is some mystery here
which I must solve, I fancied this morning that she might be Bessie
McPherson, of Stoneleigh Park, Bangor, but my nephew tells me that she
died in Rome--and if so, who is this young girl?"

"Oh, madam," Mrs. Goodnough began, "there can be no harm in telling you
now, though she didn't want anybody to know; not for herself--she ain't
a bit ashamed, but some of her high friends is, and made her promise to
keep to herself who she was; but you are bound to know, and she _is_
Miss Bessie McPherson, of Stoneleigh, and she is not dead at all, and
never has been. She had the fever in Rome, but she got well, and it was
her mother who died there; this is the truth, and may God forgive me if
I have done harm by my tattling."

"You have done no harm," Lucy replied, "but on the contrary a great good
to Miss McPherson, whom I shall at once have removed to my state-room.
Fortunately I am alone, and can share it with her as well as not."

What Lucy Grey willed to do she went about at once, and in less than an
hour she had interviewed the captain, the purser, and the doctor, and,
while the passengers were at dinner, Bessie was lifted carefully in
Jennie's strong arms and taken to Miss Grey's state-room, where she was
laid upon the lounge under the window, as the place where she would have
more room and better air. The change seemed to revive her at once, and
when, after her dinner, Miss Grey returne