“Now, miss,” said Bessie, quietly. “I presumed so far as to bring my box, for he said I was to stay if you’d let me.”
“You dear, thoughtful girl!” exclaimed Olivia, pressing her arm. “But who is ‘he’—your father? How kind——” She stopped short, noticing that Bessie’s face had suddenly grown crimson. “What is the matter? Who is ‘he’?” she repeated, fixing her lovely eyes on the girl’s downcast face. “Answer me, Bessie! Of whom do you speak?”
“Must I tell?” whispered Bessie.
“Certainly you must,” replied Olivia. “I don’t understand——”
“It was Mr. Faradeane, miss,” said Bessie, in a low voice.
Olivia drew her hand from the girl’s arm, and sank back in the chair.
“Mr. Faradeane!” she said, almost inaudibly.
Bessie dropped down beside her.
“Yes, miss. It was he who brought me to think of it. He said he’d heard that your maid was going, and he said to me how nice it would be for you to have some one—he said some friend—with you in that big, new house of Mr. Bradstone’s, and he put it in my head to come and ask you. He knows how I love you, Miss Olivia! Nothing escapes him—he thinks of everything! Are you angry, miss?” she half-whimpered.
Olivia put her hand from her forehead, and turned her face—it was very pale—to the girl.