Grey, who would probably one day be master of the place, and
she blushed guiltily, as if she had said some immodest thing.

Miss Lucy met her at the door, and, taking her to her room, made her lie
down till they were joined, by Miss McPherson, who came to lunch, which
was served in the breakfast-room, and was just the kind to tempt an
invalid.

Bessie enjoyed it immensely, and felt herself growing stronger and
better in the brightness and freshness of this beautiful home which was
one day to be Grey's.

On the wall, beside Blind Robin's, there was a picture of Grey, taken in
Europe when he was fourteen, and just before the great sorrow came upon
him and robbed his face of a little of the assurance and boyish
eagerness which the artist had depicted upon the canvas. But it was like
him still--like him, as he was now, in his young manhood, when to do
good to others, to make somebody happy every day, was the rule of his
life. And Bessie's eyes were often fixed upon it, as, after lunch was
over they still sat in the breakfast-room, because of the sunshine which
came in so brightly at the windows. And while they sat there the elder
women talked of Grey and what he would probably do, now that his travels
in Europe were ended.

"He ought to marry and settle down. Is there any hope of his doing so?"
Miss Betsey said, and Lucy replied:

"I think so, yes, I am quite sure of it, if everything goes well, as I
think it will."

Bessie was sitting with her back partly turned to the ladies, who did
not see the crimson spots which covered her face for a moment and then
left it deathly pale, as she heard that Grey Jerrold was to be married.
For an instant everything around her turned black, and when she came to
herself she felt that she could not breathe in that room with Grey's
picture on the wall, and his eyes looking at her as they had looked that
day, in Rome, when he had said to her words she would almost give half
her life to hear again. Bessie was no dissembler. She could not sit
there in her pain and make no sign, and, turning to her aunt, she said:

"Please, auntie, let Jennie take me into the air, I am sick and faint;
I--"

She could not say anything more lest she should break down entirely;
and, glancing significantly at each other, the two ladies called Jennie,
and bade her take her young mistress into the garden.

"Go to the rose-arbor. It is warmer there," Miss Lucy said; but only
Jennie heard, for Bessie was too