could not if I were a man, and so we are to be married in June, here, in grandma’s house, where she brought me the minute she heard of the engagement.

“’It is highly improper for you to stay at Trevellian Castle a day, under the circumstances,’ she said, as if Sir Jack, as my promised husband, had been suddenly transformed into a monster, who would work me harm.

“I wish you could come to the wedding, and so does Jack.  He is here, and has been for a week, and when I finish this letter we are going out to sit upon the rocks and see the tide come in and the moon rise, and shall naturally sentimentalize a little, and he will tell me how much he loves me, and call me his Irish lassie; he has done that a hundred times, but when he gets too spooney and demonstrative, I ask him if he loves me better than he did you, and that quiets him, for like your president, or king, George Somebody or other, he cannot tell a lie, and says: 

“’Not better, perhaps, but differently, just as you are different from her.  She is fair, you know, and you are dark—­’ and so I infer that his love for you was white, and his love for me black. ’Ah, bien; je suis contente.’

“And now I must close, for Jack has come in, hat in hand, and bids me hurry, as there is the funniest specimen of an American down on the Rocks that he ever saw.  Her name is Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, and her daughter married an Irish lord who lives near Dublin.  I have met so few Americans that I must really see this one.  Jack says it is better than a play to hear her talk.  So, good-by.  From your loving FLOSSIE.”

“P.S.—­I have seen Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, who knows you, and Grey, and all his relations back to the flood.  Is she a fair specimen of Americans?  But of course not; even I know better than that.  Mr. Jerrold is not at all like her—­neither, I fancy, are his people.  Mrs. Browne has recently arrived, and is to spend the summer with her daughter.  Lady Hardy, who is not with her.  She talks so funny, and her slang is so original, and her grammar so droll, that I find her charming, and if many of the Americans are like her, you are to be congratulated, as you can never lack variety.  Once more, good-by, FLORENCE MEREDITH.”

CHAPTER XVIII.

HOME AGAIN.

Great were the rejoicings both in Boston and Allington over the return of the travelers, and great the surprise of all, when it was known that Bessie had come back an heiress to no mean fortune.  But just who the great uncle was from whom her money had come to her, none, except Grey’s father and Mr. Sanford ever knew, and if they had, few would have remembered the peddler of more than forty years ago whose disappearance had caused no remark, and awakened no suspicion.  Could Bessie have had her way she would have told the story fearlessly and moved the bones of her kinsman to another resting-place, but Grey and Mr. Sanford overruled her, both for Hannah’s sake and for the sake of Grey’s father, who could not have borne the talk it would have created.