Reining up old Whitey, the lady stopped and waited until Mrs. Browne came to her.  Then, extending her hand, she said: 

“You are welcome home again.  I did not know you had come until I saw your carriage go by, and the phaetons with Allen and a lady in it,” and she glanced toward Daisy, who, having heard from Allen that the stiff, queer-looking woman in the buggy was her aunt, had arisen to her feet for the purpose of getting a better view of her.

“Yes,” Mrs. Browne began, “we got home to-day, and a more tuckered out lot you never saw.  Home is home, if it’s ever so homely, I tell ’em.  By the way, I’m glad you happened this way.  I was goin’ to send you word, I’ve brought home with me one of your relations, Mrs. Archibald McPherson, your nephew’s wife, and I hope you’ll call and see her.  She is very nice, and so pretty, too.  That’s her in black.”

“Ahem!” and Miss Betsey’s thin lips were firmly compressed.  “Ahem! yes—­Mrs. Archibald McPherson.  Why is she in black?”

Then followed the story of the telegram received on the Celtic, and the terrible shock it was to Daisy, who was for a time wholly overcome.

“Seems pretty brisk now,” Miss Betsey said, glancing sharply toward the airy figure now walking up and down the piazza with Allen at its side.  “Why didn’t she go home at once to her daughter?”

“She did talk of it,” Mrs. Browne replied, uneasily for she detected disapprobation of her guest in Miss McPherson’s tone.  “I think she would of went, but it seemed a pity not to see a little of America first.  She will not stay long, and I hope you’ll call soon.  I b’lieve you have never been in my new house.”

“No, I have not.  Who, may I ask, is that tow-headed man, with his hair parted in the middle?”

“Oh, excuse me,” and Mrs. Browne brightened at once.  “That is Lord Hardy.  We met him in Nice.  He is going West, and we persuaded him to stop here first.  He is very nice, and not at all stuck up.”

“Yes, an Irishman.  I’ve seen him before.  If he is poor, my advice is, look out for Augusta, and, anyway, have a care for your boy.  Good-night.  It’s growing late.  Get up, Whitey,” and with a jerk at the reins the old lady drove on, while Mrs. Browne, rather crestfallen and disappointed, went slowly back to the house, wondering why she was to have a care for her boy, her Allen, still walking up and down at Daisy’s side, and talking eagerly to her.

“I suppose I am meaner than dirt, but I cannot help it, I will not notice that woman—­no, not a woman, but a gambler, an adventuress, a flirt, who, if she cannot capture that Irishman, will try her luck with Allen!  I hate her, but I pity the girl, and I’ll send her a hundred pounds at once,” Miss Betsey soliloquized, as she went home through the gathering twilight.

And before she slept she wrote to her bankers in London, bidding them forward to Bessie’s address another hundred pounds, and charge it to her account.