So confident was Miss McPherson that her nephew would be glad to have his daughter removed from the influences around her to a home where she was sure of enough to eat, and that his frivolous wife would be glad to be rid of a child who must be in the way of her flirtations, that she was constantly expecting to hear that she was coming.  She did not believe Archie would bring her himself, but she thought he would probably consign her to the care of some reliable person, or put her in charge of the captain or stewardess, and in her anxiety to have the little girl she had written a second letter three days after she sent the first.  In this she had suggested the stewardess of the Celtic, whom she knew, and with whom she assured Archie he could trust his child.  But days and weeks went by, until it was past the middle of June, and still there were no tidings of Bessie; at last, however, there came a foreign letter, addressed in a woman’s hand to: 

    “Miss Elizabeth McPherson, Allington, Worcester Co., Mass., U.S.A.”

The Elizabeth was an affront to the good woman, who bristled all over with resentment, as she held the dainty envelope in her hand and studied the strange monogram, “D.A.M.” (Daisy Allen McPherson).

“Swears even in her monogram!  I knew she would,” was Miss Betsey’s comment, as she broke the seal and began to read, first muttering to herself, “She writes well enough.”

The letter was as follows: 

    “STONELEIGH, BANGOR, June 3d.

    “OUR DEAR AUNT.”

    “Umph!  I’m not her aunt,” was the mental comment, and then she
    read on: 

“We have just come home from Paris, where we spent several delightful weeks with a party of friends, who would gladly have kept us longer, but Archie was homesick for the old place, though what he can see in it to admire I am sure I do not know.  So here we are for an indefinite length of time, and here we found both your letters, which old Anthony, who grows more and more stupid every year, failed to forward to us in Paris.  As Archie leaves everything to me, he said I must answer the letters, and thank you for your offer to remove our little girl from the poisonous atmosphere you think surrounds her, and bring her up morally and spiritually.  I do not know what the atmosphere of Stoneleigh used to be when you lived here, but I assure you it is very healthy now; not at all poisonous, or malarious.  We have had some of the oldest yews cut down and that lets in the sunshine and fresh air, too.

“But I am wandering from the object of my letter, which is to say that we cannot let you have our little Bessie, even with the prospect of her learning to scour knives and pare potatoes, and possibly having a few thousands, if she does well.  Archie would as soon part with his eyes as with Bessie; while nothing short of an assured fortune, and that a large one, would induce me to give her up.  She is in one sense my stock in trade—­”

“Heartless wretch!” dropped from the indignant lady’s lips.  “Her stock in trade!  What does she mean?  Does she play out this child for her own base purposes?”