the plans she drew of what she
meant to do. There were to be bow-windows here, and balconies there, and
porticoes in another place; chimneys were to be moved as readily and
easily as if they had been pieces of furniture; partitions thrown down,
doors taken away, and portieres substituted. All the solid,
old-fashioned furniture was to be discarded, and light, airy articles to
take its place, like the willow work and brass bedsteads then on their
way to Hardy Manor as a gift from Mrs. Browne. Indeed, it was not until
Grey told Bessie that she was outdoing the Yankees in her desire for
change, and asked if she were copying Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, that she
stopped to rest, and concluded to wait for a letter from Neil before she
commenced the work of knocking down and hauling out, as Dorothy
expressed it.

At last the letter came, not from Neil, but from his father, who, after
thanking Bessie most cordially for her generous offer, which he was
glad to accept, wrote as follows:

"I hope you will not be disappointed because I answer your letter in
place of Neil, who said he could not possibly do it. He is greatly
changed, and does not seem like himself at all. After reading your
letter and passing it to me, he sat for a long time staring blankly
at nothing, with a look on his face which I could not understand,
and when I asked him what was the matter, he put his head upon the
table and cried as young men never cry except they are greatly
moved, and I cried, too; though why I cannot tell, unless it was for
all the trouble which has come upon us at once, the loss of my wife,
the loss of our home, and the fact that Neil must now, from
necessity, do something to earn his bread. But I do not think he
minds that as much as one might suppose, and when I began to cry he
stopped at once and tried to comfort me, and said our lot was not a
hard one by any means, when compared with what many had to endure;
that it was a good thing to have to bestir himself; that he had been
a lazy, conceited, selfish puppy long enough, and that if it were
possible he meant to be a man. And then he spoke of you as his good
angel, and said you were the truest, purest, and sweetest woman in
all the world, and that neither of us could ever repay you and your
husband for your generosity to us. I am sure I cannot, nor can I
tell you how happy I shall be at Stoneleigh. I am afrai