Miss Betsey must have felt cold again, for she rushed to the open window and shut it with a bang, while for an instant she wavered in her determination.  Then, thinking to herself, “I may as well see what stuff she really is made of,” she returned to Bessie, who, if she had not been quite so anxious and nervous, would have felt amused at her eccentric behavior.

Without telling how long it would take to earn two hundred and fifty-five pounds at two dollars and a half a week, Miss Betsey said: 

“Then it is a bargain, and you are my housemaid really, and willing to do a housemaid’s duties, and take a house maid’s place.  Do you understand all that means?”

“I think so,” Bessie answered, wondering if she should have to share the cook’s bed.

As if divining her thoughts, her aunt rejoined: 

“One exception I shall make in your favor.  You will occupy the little room next my own, at the head of the stairs.  You can go up there at once if you like, and I will see that your trunks are brought from the station.”

“Oh, thank you,” Bessie said, and in her eyes there was a look of gratitude which nearly upset Miss McPherson’s resolution again, and did make her open the window as she passed it on her way up stairs with Bessie.

Just as the room had been fitted up years ago, when she was expecting the child Bessie, just so it was now when the girl Bessie entered it.  The same single bed with its muslin hangings, the same little bureau, with its pretty toilet-set, now somewhat faded and passee in style, but showing what it had been, and in a corner the big doll with all its paraphernalia around it.

“Oh, auntie,” Bessie cried, as she stepped across the threshold, “what a lovely little room! and it almost looks as if it had been intended for me when I was younger.”

“It was meant for you years ago, when I wrote to your father and asked him to give you to me.  Fool that I was, I thought he would let you come; but he did not, and so the room has waited.”

“I never knew you sent for me,” Bessie said, “but father could not have spared me; and oh, auntie, I cannot tell you how it makes me feel to know you have kept me in your mind all these years.  Let me kiss you; please,” and throwing her arms around her aunt’s neck.  Bessie sobbed hysterically for a few moments, while the Stern face bending over her relaxed in its severity, and Miss Betsey’s voice was very kind and soothing, as she said: 

“There, there, child; don’t get up a headache.  I am glad you like the room; glad you are here.  You had better go to bed, and not come down again.”

She did not kiss the girl, but she put her hand on her head and smoothed the curly hair, and Bessie felt that it was a benediction.  When she was alone she sank upon her knees by the bedside, and burying her face in her hands, prayed earnestly that she might know what was right to do, and be a comfort and help to the woman whose peculiarities she began in part to understand.  She was so glad to be there, so glad for the shelter, of a home, that the fact of being a housemaid did not trouble her at all, though she did wonder what Neil would say, and if he would not think it quite as bad as steerage, and wondered, too, if Grey would ever come to see her, and if he would recognize her in her new position.