After breakfast the two girls were told that they were permitted to go into the garden.  They spent the whole morning there, and there Mr. Carnegie and Harry Musgrave found Bessie when they came to take their final leave of her.  It was good and brave of the little girl not to distress them with complaints, for she was awfully hungry, and likely to be so until her dainty appetite was broken in to French school-fare.  Her few tears did not signify.

Harry Musgrave said the garden was not so pretty as it appeared from the street, and the doctor made rueful allusions to convents and prisons, and was not half satisfied to leave his dear little Bessie there.  The morning sun had gone off the grass.  The walls were immensely lofty—­the tallest trees did not overtop them.  There was a weedy, weak fountain, a damp grotto, and two shrines with white images of the Blessed Mary crowned with gilt stars.

Miss Foster came into the garden the moment the visitors appeared, holding one hand against the flannel that enveloped her face.  She made the usual polite speeches of hope, expectation, and promise concerning the new-comer, and stayed about until the gentlemen went.  Then an inexpressible flatness fell upon Bessie, and she would probably have wept in earnest, but for the sight of Janey Fricker standing aloof and gazing at her wistfully for an invitation to draw near.  Somebody to succor was quite in Bessie’s way; helpless, timid things felt safe under covert of her wing.  It gave her a vocation at once to have this weak, ailing little girl seeking to her for protection, and she called her to come.  How gladly Janey came!

“What were you thinking of just now when I lost my friends?” Bessie asked her.

“Oh, of lots of things:  I can’t tell you of what.  Is that your brother?”

“No, he is a cousin.”

“Are you very fond of him?  I wonder what it feels like to have many people to love?  I have no one but father.”

“Harry Musgrave and I have known each other all our lives.  And now you and I are going to be friends.”

“If you don’t find somebody you like better, as Elise Finckel did.  There is the bell; it means dinner in ten minutes.”  Bessie was looking sorry at her new comrade’s suspicion.  Janey was quick to see it.  “Oh, I have vexed you about Elise?” cried she in a voice of pleading distress.  “When shall I learn to trust anybody again?”

Bessie smiled superior.  “Very soon, I hope,” said she.  “You must not afflict yourself with fancies.  I am not vexed; I am only sorry if you won’t trust me.  Let us wait and see.  I feel a kindness for most people, and don’t need to love one less because I love another more.  I promise to keep a warm place in my heart for you always, you little mite!  I have even taken to Miss Foster because I pity her.  She looks so overworked, and jaded, and poor.”

“It is easy to like Miss Foster when you know her.  She keeps her mamma, and her salary is only twenty-five pounds a year.”