“Bessie,” her father said, rousing up from the half dozing condition in which he was most of the time when in the house, “you are hugging a delusion with regard to Neil.  He is very kind in a way, when it costs him nothing, but he would never sacrifice his comfort or his feelings for you or me.  We are his poor relations, from the country; we are not like his world, or that powdered piece of vanity who was with him yesterday.  It would cost him nothing to take us for a drive, for the carriage is his mother’s, but you couldn’t hire him to go round that park with us; he has that false pride, more common in women than in men, which would keep him from it.  He likes you very much—­at Stoneleigh, where there are none of his set to look on; but here in London it is different.  He might take us to many places, if he would; but he dares not, lest he should be seen.  He can send you a blue silk dress, which I half wish you had returned; and he can come here and make your pulse beat faster with his soft words and manner, which mean so little; but other attentions we must not expect from him.  I tell you this, my child, because you are getting to be a woman.  You were fifteen last March.  You are very beautiful, and Neil McPherson knows it, and if you had a fortune he might seek to be more than your cousin; but as it is, don’t attach much importance to what he says and does, or be disappointed at what he does not do.”

Bessie did not reply for the great lump which had risen in her throat as her father put into words what in part she had suspected, but tried to fight down.  She did not like to believe that Neil had a fault, and still she felt that her father might be right, and that Neil was ashamed of them.  Something in his manner since they came to London, would indicate as much, and her heart was very sore with a sense of something lost, and there were tears on her long eyelashes as she bent over the darn, too much absorbed in her own thoughts to hear the step on the stairs or know that any one was coming until there was a tap at the open door, and looking up she saw Jack Trevellian standing before her.  Mrs. Buncher, who was her own waitress, had bidden him “go right up,” and as the door was ajar he stood for an instant on the upper landing and heard Archie say: 

“You were fifteen last March.  You are very beautiful, and Neil McPherson knows it, and if you had a fortune he might seek to be more than your cousin, but as it is don’t attach much importance to what he says and does or be disappointed at what he does not do.”

“The old cove has hit it,” Jack thought; “he understands Neil to a dot.  If Bessie had a fortune he would go down before her in dead earnest; and, perhaps, I would too, for, ’pon my soul, she has the sweetest face I ever saw.  What a lovely woman she will make.”