“What is it, petite?  Are you thinking how you might have been Lady Bessie Trevellian?”

Then she turned her clear, truthful blue eyes upon him and answered: 

“No, Grey.  I would rather be your wife than the grandest duchess in the world, but I am thinking of Neil and his father, and how hard it is for them to be so poor.  Grey”—­and rising from her stool, Bessie seated herself on her husband’s lap, and, winding her arms around his neck, and laying her soft, warm check against his bearded one, said again; “Grey, I want to ask you something—­want to do something.  Can I?”

“Yes, do what you like.  Ask me what you like.  What is it, darling?” Grey answered her, and Bessie replied: 

“I want to give a thousand pounds of my money to Neil and a thousand to his father.  That is not much, I know, but the interest upon it will put Uncle John in better lodgings than he can now afford, and it will help Neil, too.  Only think of three hundred pounds a year after all he has been accustomed to spend.  What do you think, Grey?”

Grey’s arm tightened its clasp around the girlish figure, and his lips touched Bessie’s white forehead as he said: 

“I think you the most generous, unselfish little woman in all the world.  And so I am sure would Neil, if he knew what you proposed; but, Bessie, I do not believe he would like it, or like you to offer it to him.  He has more manhood than that.  Poverty is hard to bear, but it will not hurt him.  On the contrary, having to work for his living will bring out the very best there is in him, and make him a man.  He will not starve or even suffer want on three hundred pounds a year; it is more than many a working man has with a large family to support.  So do not waste your sympathy on Neil, who can take care of himself; but his father is old, and the change will be hard upon him.  Was he not born at Stoneleigh?”

“I think so.  Yes,” Bessie answered, and Grey continued: 

“Neil says he likes the country and laments the loss of Elm Park.  Now, this is my suggestion; Anthony and Dorothy ought to have some one with them in their old age.  How would you like taking a part of that two thousand pounds you are so anxious to dispose of, and with it repair and fit up this place into a comfortable and pleasant home for Mr. McPherson, whenever he chooses to stay here?  The rest of the two thousand you can invest for his use as long as he lives, and the interest of it will add to his present moderate income.  What do you think of my plan?”

“I think it the very best that could be adopted, and I shall write to Neil to-night, so it will go in the first mail to-morrow,” Bessie said, and before she slept she wrote a long letter to Neil, telling him first of the fortune which had come to her so unexpectedly, but not explaining how it had come.

She was simply the sole heiress of a certain Joel Rogers, who left shares in the quarries and mines, and these she was now possessed of, and felt herself a rich woman.