“Quite an heiress, it seems to me,” she wrote, “although the sum is really not so very large, but it is more than I ever dreamed of having, and as money burns in my fingers, I am dying to be rid of some of it, and this is a plan which Grey and I have talked over together, and which I hope will meet your approval and that of your father.”

Then, as briefly as possible she made her offer, which she begged him to persuade his father to accept.

“It will make me very happy,” she wrote, “to know that his old age is made more comfortable by me.  I should be glad to give you a part of my little fortune, but Grey says you would not like it, and perhaps he is right.  I am glad that you are going to do something; I think you will be happier if occupied with business, and I wish you to be happy, as I am sure you will be some day, and always remember that you have two sincere friends, Grey and your Cousin Bessie.”

She was going to add “Jerrold” to the Bessie, but refrained from doing so, thinking to herself that she would not be the first to flaunt her new name in Neil’s face.  Grey, however, had no such scruples.  Looking over Bessie’s shoulder, as she finished her letter, he saw her start to make the “J,” and when she changed her mind, and put down her pen, he took it up and himself wrote the “Jerrold” with a flourish, saying, as he did so: 

“Don’t be afraid to show your colors, petite.  I think ‘Bessie Jerrold’ the sweetest name in all the world.”

“So do I; but I doubt if Neil holds the same opinion,” Bessie answered, with a laugh, as she leaned her head upon her husband’s bosom, while he kissed her lips and forehead, and said the fond, foolish things which no loving wife, however old she may be, is ever tired of hearing—­fond, foolish words, which, if oftener spoken, would keep alive the love in hearts which should never grow cold to each other.

It was three days before an answer came to Bessie’s letter, and in that time she developed a most astonishing talent for architecture, or rather for devising and planning how to repair and improve a house.  At least twenty sheets of paper were wasted with the plans she drew of what she meant to do.  There were to be bow-windows here, and balconies there, and porticoes in another place; chimneys were to be moved as readily and easily as if they had been pieces of furniture; partitions thrown down, doors taken away, and portieres substituted.  All the solid, old-fashioned furniture was to be discarded, and light, airy articles to take its place, like the willow work and brass bedsteads then on their way to Hardy Manor as a gift from Mrs. Browne.  Indeed, it was not until Grey told Bessie that she was outdoing the Yankees in her desire for change, and asked if she were copying Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, that she stopped to rest, and concluded to wait for a letter from Neil before she commenced the work of knocking down and hauling out, as Dorothy expressed it.