“Thank God!” Grey exclaimed, and slipping a bill into the girl’s hand, he continued:  “Take good care of her, Jennie, and when she is able tell her I came to see her.”

“An’ sure I’ll tell her ivery blessed word, and that you left your love.”

“I did not say that,” Grey answered her, laughingly, as he bade her good-by and walked away.

For a week or more Bessie scarcely spoke or moved, it was such happiness to rest, with every wish anticipated either by her aunt or Jennie, whose voice was a whasper most of the time, and who was learning to be more quiet and subdued.  At last, however, Bessie began to talk, and said to Jennie one day: 

“I believe I am getting better, and I am afraid I am not as glad as I ought to be—­the world holds so little for me, and so few who care for me beside auntie and you.”

“An’, faith,” Jennie began, “it’s not for ye to be sayin’ the likes of that.  Nobody to care for you, indade, with the gentry comin’ every day to inquire for you, the praste a readin’ his prayers in this very room, and the foine gintleman who was on the ship a sittin’ down stairs three mortal hours waitin’ to know if you waked up dead or alive, and thankin’ God when it was alive I told him you was.”

“Who, Jennie?  What gentleman?” Bessie asked.

“Mr. Grey, to be sure,” Jennie replied; “and he left his compliments for ye, and thanked God when I told him you was better.  Oh, but he’s very fine, and Grey’s Park is like them places in the old country where the grandees live.”

Whether it was that Bessie was thoroughly rested, or that the fact that Grey had not forgotten her was in itself a restorative, her recovery was very rapid, though she still looked like some fragile flower which a breath might blow away, and Miss McPherson watched her with a tender solicitude, astonishing in one as cold and impassive as she had always seemed to be.

CHAPTER XIII.

BESSIE GOES TO GREY’S PARK.

It was a lovely day in early October when Bessie made her first visit to Grey’s Park, of which she had heard such glowing descriptions from Jennie, who took her there in an invalid chair sent for the purpose by Miss Lucy.

The grass in the park was fresh and green from recent rains, and the late autumn flowers gave a brightness to the place scarcely equaled in summer.

“Oh, how lovely it is! pretty almost as the Kensington Gardens,” Bessie exclaimed, as she entered the gate and looked around her.  “I think I should like to live here,” she continued; and then there came to her a thought of Grey, who would probably one day be master of the place, and she blushed guiltily, as if she had said some immodest thing.

Miss Lucy met her at the door, and, taking her to her room, made her lie down till they were joined, by Miss McPherson, who came to lunch, which was served in the breakfast-room, and was just the kind to tempt an invalid.