arm-chair by a window which overlooked the park and the Menai Bridge not
very far away.

He was very fond of Bessie, whom he always called "dear child," and
once, when she stood by him, he put his arm about her and kissing her
fondly said, "I wish you could have been my daughter; it would have been
the making of Neil."

"No, no, oh, no, I couldn't, for there is Grey, whom I love a great deal
the best," Bessie answered hurriedly, as she drew herself from him, half
feeling as if a wrong had been done her husband by even a hint that she
could ever have been the wife of another.

Some time in April the Jerrolds went to London and met Neil at the Grand
Hotel, where he was staying a few days before leaving for India.

Owing to Grey's tact, the interview was tolerably free from
embarrassment, though in Neil's heart there was a wild tumult of
conflicting emotions, as he stood with Bessie again face to face, and
heard her well remembered voice.

How lovely she was in her young, happy wifehood, with the tired,
care-worn look gone from her sweet face, where only the light of perfect
joy and peace was shining.

Grey, who, without being in the least a prig, was something of a
connoisseur in the details of dress, had delighted to adorn his bride
with everything which could enhance her beauty, and Bessie wore her
plumage well, and there was a most striking contrast between the girl of
fifteen, who, in her washed linen gown and faded ribbons, had once stood
up in the park waving her handkerchief to Neil, and the young matron of
twenty, who, clad in a faultless dinner dress, with diamonds in her ears
and on her fingers, went forward to meet her cousin. And Neil recognized
the difference, and felt himself growing both hot and cold by turns as
he took the hand extended to him, and looked down upon the little lady,
whom, but for her bright face and clear, innocent blue eyes, he would
scarcely have known, so complete was the transformation. For a moment
Neil felt as if he preferred the old linen, with its puffed sleeves and
antiquated appearance, to the shimmer of the fawn-colored satin, with
its facings of delicate blue, and the flush of the solitaires; but, as
he watched her moving about the elegant rooms and discharging her duties
as hostess just as kindly and thoughtfully as she had done at
Stoneleigh, where the china was cracked and the silver was old, he said
to himself, that the transformation was such as it should be, and th