“It means,” she began, unfalteringly, “that I have no money for a first class ticket, which costs more than three times as much as steerage.  Many respectable people go out that way, and it is very comfortable.  The Germanic is a new boat, and all the apartments are clean and nice, I am not ashamed of it.  I am ashamed of nothing, except the debt I owe your mother, and that I had to borrow five pounds of Anthony, who insisted upon giving it to me but I would not take it.  Why do you look at me so strangely, Neil?  Do you think I have committed the unpardonable sin?”

“Bessie,” Neil began, huskily, and in a voice choked with passion, “this is the drop too much.  I knew you had some low instincts, but never dreamed you could stoop to this degradation, which affects me as much as it does you.  But it is not too late to change, and you must do it.”

“No, Neil, I cannot.  I have barely enough to get there as it is,” she replied, and he continued: 

“Mother sent you five pounds with her compliments.  Will that do?  Here it is,” and he offered her the note, which she put aside quickly, as she said: 

“I cannot take that from your mother.  Give it back to her, and, if you think she meant it well, thank her for me, and tell her I shall pay the whole some day when I earn it.”

She emphasized the last words, and, more angry than before, Neil exclaimed: 

“Earn it!  Why will you persist in such nonsense, as if you were a common char-woman?  You know as well as I that you are going to Aunt Betsey with the hope to get some of her money, as you unquestionably will.”

“Neil, I am not,” Bessie answered, firmly.  “I am going to America, because there I can work and be respected, too, while here, according to your code, I cannot.”

“Then, for Heaven’s sake, go decently, and not herd with a lot of cattle, for emigrants are little better; and do not make yourself a spectacle for the other passengers to gaze upon and wonder about, as they will be sure to do.  If you have no pride for yourself, you have no right to disgrace me.  How do you think it will sound, some day, that Neil McPherson’s wife went out as steerage?  Have you no feeling about it?”

“Not in that way—­no,” Bessie replied.  “It seems to me I have been in the steerage all my life, and this can be no worse.  Lady Bothwaite went thus to Australia to see how it fared with the passengers.”

“Yes, and got herself well laughed at as a lunatic,” Neil rejoined.  Then, after a pause, he continued, excitedly:  “But to come to the point—­you must either give up this crazy plan or me.  I can have no share in this disgrace, which the world would never forget, and which mother would never forgive.  My wife must not come from the steerage.”

He spoke with great decision, for he was very angry, and for a moment there was perfect silence between them, while Bessie regarded him fixedly, with an expression on her face which made him uneasy, for he did not quite mean all he had said to her, and there was a strong clinging of his heart to this fragile little girl, who said at last, very softly and low: