The next day she was able to walk the deck for some hours with Grey as her attendant; and when, at last, land was in sight, she seemed almost as well and bright as ever as she stood looking eagerly upon either shore, and declaring America beautiful as a picture.  It had been arranged that she should stop for a few hours at the hotel with Miss Lucy and Grey, and then go on with them to Allington.  But their plans were changed when they reached the wharf, for there they were met by a messenger who had been sent from Mr. Burton Jerrold with the intelligence that Grey’s mother was very ill, and that Lucy must come at once with Grey without stopping at her own home.

“I am sorry, for I wished to take you to your aunt myself,” Lucy said to Bessie, adding after a moment, “but I will give you a letter of introduction, if you like.”

“No, thank you,” Bessie replied; “I would rather go to her alone, so that if she is kind I shall know it is to me, and not to you, or because she thinks it will please you.”

“No danger of that,” Grey said, laughingly; “she is a great stickler for the naked truth, as she expresses it, and all the Aunt Lucys in the world could not make her say she liked you if she did not.  She is a singular specimen, but she is sure to like you, and if she does not, go to my Aunt Hannah; she would welcome you as a Godsend.  She is the auntie who lives in the pasture-land.  I shall soon come to Allington and see you,” he added, as he bade her good-by, for he and his aunt were to take the express, which did not stop at Allington, and she was to take the accommodation, which did.

He had made all the arrangements for her, and seen that her baggage was checked and her ticket bought; but still she felt very desolate and helpless when he left her and she was alone with Jennie, who staid by her to the last, promising to let her know if she heard of any situation either as governess or companion.

Mrs. Goodnough had gone at once with her daughter who had met her at the wharf, but Jennie’s cousin, who lived out of the city, had sent her husband to the ship, and, as he was porter in one of the large warehouses, and did not go home till night, Jennie had leisure to attend to Bessie, whom she saw to the train, and to whom she said at parting: 

“Keep yer vail down, honey, for there’s spalpeens an’ bla’guards everywhere, and they might be for spakin to ye.  Good-by; God bless ye.”

CHAPTER X.

BESSIE MEETS HER AUNT.

The accommodation train from New York to Boston was late that day.  There was a detention at Hartford and another at Springfield, so that the clock on Miss Betsey McPherson’s mantel struck seven when she heard the whistle of the locomotive as the cars stopped at the Allington station.  As Miss Betsey was when we last saw her so she was now—­tall, and angular, and severe, and looking, as she sat in her hard, straight-back chair, like the very embodiment of the naked truth, from the fit of her dress to the scanty handful of hair, twisted in a knot at the back of her head.