if I fail in some things at first, you will tell me what to do. How
long will it take to earn two hundred and fifty-five pounds at two
dollars and a half a week?"

Miss Betsey must have felt cold again, for she rushed to the open window
and shut it with a bang, while for an instant she wavered in her
determination. Then, thinking to herself, "I may as well see what stuff
she really is made of," she returned to Bessie, who, if she had not been
quite so anxious and nervous, would have felt amused at her eccentric
behavior.

Without telling how long it would take to earn two hundred and
fifty-five pounds at two dollars and a half a week, Miss Betsey said:

"Then it is a bargain, and you are my housemaid really, and willing to
do a housemaid's duties, and take a house maid's place. Do you
understand all that means?"

"I think so," Bessie answered, wondering if she should have to share the
cook's bed.

As if divining her thoughts, her aunt rejoined:

"One exception I shall make in your favor. You will occupy the little
room next my own, at the head of the stairs. You can go up there at once
if you like, and I will see that your trunks are brought from the
station."

"Oh, thank you," Bessie said, and in her eyes there was a look of
gratitude which nearly upset Miss McPherson's resolution again, and did
make her open the window as she passed it on her way up stairs with
Bessie.

Just as the room had been fitted up years ago, when she was expecting
the child Bessie, just so it was now when the girl Bessie entered it.
The same single bed with its muslin hangings, the same little bureau,
with its pretty toilet-set, now somewhat faded and _passee_ in style,
but showing what it had been, and in a corner the big doll with all its
paraphernalia around it.

"Oh, auntie," Bessie cried, as she stepped across the threshold, "what a
lovely little room! and it almost looks as if it had been intended for
me when I was younger."

"It was meant for you years ago, when I wrote to your father and asked
him to give you to me. Fool that I was, I thought he would let you come;
but he did not, and so the room has waited."

"I never knew you sent for me," Bessie said, "but father could not have
spared me; and oh, auntie, I cannot tell you how it makes me feel to
know you have kept me in your mind all these years. Let me kiss you;
please," and throwing her arms around her aunt's neck. Bessie sobbed
hysterically for a few moments, whil