Neil looked at her in surprise, while a cloud gathered upon his brow.  That Bessie should give her room to Grey seemed to him absurd, though he never stopped to ask himself where she could put him if not there Neil knew perfectly well the capabilities of the old stone house, and that spare rooms were not as plenty as blackberries, but so long as he was not incommoded it was no business of his to inquire into matters; nor could he understand that an extra fire even for a day was a heavy drain on Bessie’s purse.  But Grey’s quick ear caught Bessie’s whispered words, and before he entered the warm, pretty room at the head of the stairs he knew it belonged to her, and guessed why she had given it to him.  Under any circumstances he would have known by certain unmistakable signs that it was a young girl’s apartment into which he was ushered, and after Neil left him he looked about him with a kind of awe at the chintz-covered furniture, the white curtains at the window, and the pretty little toilet table with its hanging glass in the center, and its coverings of pink and white muslin.

Just then, through the door, which had inadvertently been left a little ajar, he caught the sound of voices in the hall below, Neil’s voice and Bessie’s and Neil was saying to her, disapprovingly: 

“Why did you give your room to Grey?  Was it necessary?”

“Yes, Neil; there was no other comfortable place for him; the north room is so large and the chimney smokes so we could never get it warm,” Bessie said, and Neil continued: 

“And so you are to sleep there and catch your death-cold?”

“Not a bit of it,” Bessie replied.  “Dorothy will warm the bed with her big warming-pan and I shall not mind it in the least.  I am never cold.”

“Well, I think it a shame!” Neil said, feeling more annoyed that Grey was to sleep in Bessie’s room, than that Bessie was to pass the night in the great, cheerless north chamber with only old Dorothy’s warming-pan for comfort.

But it never occurred to him that he could give Grey his room and himself take the cold and the dreariness of the north room, nor yet that he could share his bed with Grey.  He never thought for others when the thinking conflicted with himself, and returning to the dining-room he sat down by the fire with anything but a happy expression on his face, as he wished that he had not invited Grey to Stoneleigh.

Something in the expression of Bessie’s and Grey’s faces as they looked at each other had disturbed him, for he had read undisguised admiration in the one, and confidence and trust in the other, and knew that there were already sympathy and accord between them, and that they were sure to be fast friends at least, just as he had told himself he wished them to be.

Meanwhile Grey was thinking, as he made his toilet for supper, and as a result of his thoughts he at last rang the bell which brought old Dorothy to him.