he suggested it to Bessie, she said “No” so decidedly that he gave it up and nerved himself to meet what he never could have met but for Flossie, who, as far as she could, managed everything, even to battling fiercely with the proprietor, whose bill she compelled him to lessen by several hundred francs, and when he demanded payment for four dozen towels which he said had been ruined, she insisted upon taking the towels, which she said were hers, if she paid for them.  Never had portier or clerk encountered such a tempest as she proved to be, and they finally surrendered the field and let her have her own way, shrugging their shoulders significantly, as they called her “la petite diable Irelandaise.”

It was old Mrs. Meredith who furnished the necessary funds, for there was no time to send to England.  Neil telegraphed to his father, asking him to go down to Stoneleigh and meet them on their arrival with the body.  But the Hon. John was suffering with the gout, and only Anthony and Dorothy were there, when Neil and Flossie and Bessie came, the latter utterly exhausted and unable to sit up a moment after entering the house.  So they took her to her old room, which Dorothy had made as comfortable and pleasant as she could; and there Bessie lay, weak as a little child, while the kind neighbors came again and stood in the yew-shaded cemetery where Daisy was buried and where there was room for no more of the McPhersons.

“Now what?” Flossie said to Neil, when the burial was over and they sat alone in the parlor; “now what are you going to do?” and when he answered, gloomily, “I am sure I don’t know,” she flashed her black eyes upon him and replied:  “You don’t know?  Then let me tell you; marry Bessie at once.  What else can you do?  Surely you will not leave her here alone?”

“I know I ought not to leave her here,” Neil said, despondingly.  “But I cannot marry her now.”

“Why not?” Flossie asked him sharply, and he replied: 

“I cannot marry her and starve, as we surely should do.  I have no means of my own, and mother would turn me from her door if I brought her Bessie as my wife.  As it is, I dread going to her with all these heavy bills.  It was a foolish thing to bring Mrs. McPherson home, and I said so at the time.  That woman has been a curse to every one with whom she ever came in contact.”

“Oh, mamma, poor mamma, I wish I, too, were dead, as you are,” moaned, or rather gasped a little white-faced girl who was standing just outside the door, and had heard all Neil was saying.

Bessie had remained upstairs as long as she could endure it, and when she heard voices in the parlor and knew that Neil and Flossie were there, she arose, and, putting on a dressing-gown and shawl, crept down stairs to go to them.  But Flossie’s question arrested her steps, and leaning against the side of the door, she heard all their conversation, and knew the bitterness there was in Neil’s heart toward