PART II.

I. Stoneleigh
II.  The McPhersons
III.  At Monte Carlo
IV.  Little Bessie
V. At Penrhyn Park
VI.  Seven Years Later
VII.  Neil’s Discomforture
VIII.  Jack and Bessie
IX.  Christmas at Stoneleigh
X. Grey
XI.  Christmas Day
XII.  The Contract
XIII.  The New Grey
XIV.  Miss McPherson and the Letter
XV.  From January to March
XVI.  From March to June
XVII.  Mrs. Rossiter-Browne
XVIII.  The Birds which sang, and the shadows which Fell
XIX.  What Grey and Jack Did
XX.  What The McPhersons Did
XXI.  What Daisy Did

PART III.

I. In Rome
II.  Farewell
III.  Dead
IV.  Poor Daisy
V. Bessie’s Decision
VI.  In Liverpool
VII.  On the Ship
VIII.  Grey and his Aunt
IX.  Bessie is Promoted
X. Bessie meets her Aunt
XI.  Miss McPherson’s Housemaid
XII.  Bessie’s Successor
XIII.  Bessie goes to Grey’s Park
XIV.  Telling Bessie
XV.  Wedding Bells
XVI.  Bessie’s Fortune
XVII.  Old Friends
XVIII.  Home again
XIX.  Joel Rogers’ Monument
XX.  After Five Years

BESSIE’S FORTUNE.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

The Jerrolds of Boston.

Mrs. Geraldine Jerrold, of Boston, had in her girlhood been Miss Geraldine Grey, of Allington, one of those quiet, pretty little towns which so thickly dot the hills and valleys Of New England.  Her father, who died before her marriage, had been a sea-captain, and a man of great wealth, and was looked upon as a kind of autocrat, whose opinion was a law and whose friendship was an honor.  When a young lady, Miss Geraldine had chafed at the stupid town and the stupider people, as she designated the citizens of Allington, and had only been happy when the house at Grey’s Park was full of guests after the manner of English houses, where hospitality is dispensed on a larger scale than is common in America.  She had been abroad, and had spent some weeks in Derbyshire at the Peacock Inn, close to the park of Chatsworth, which she admired so much that on her return to Allington she never rested until the five acres of land, in the midst of which her father’s house stood, were improved and fitted up as nearly as possible like the beautiful grounds across the sea.  With good taste and plenty of money, she succeeded beyond her most sanguine hopes, and Grey’s Park was the pride of the town, and the wonder of the entire county.  A kind of show place it became, and Miss Geraldine was never happier or prouder than when strangers were going over the grounds or through the house, which was filled with rare pictures and choice statuary gathered from all parts of the world, for Captain Grey had brought something curious and costly from every port at which his vessel touched, so that the house was like a museum, or, as Miss Geraldine fancied, like the palaces and castles in Europe, which are shown to strangers in the absence of the family.