Before Grey could answer her Neil came in, and as supper was soon after served, no further allusion was made to America until the table was cleared away, and the party of four were sitting around the fire, Archie in his accustomed corner with Bessie at his side, her hand on the arm of his chair and her head occasionally resting lovingly against his shoulder. Neil was opposite, while Grey sat before the fire, with now and then a shiver running down his back as the rising wind crept into the room, even through the thick curtains which draped the rattling windows behind him. But Grey did not care for the cold. His thoughts were across the sea, in the house among the rocks, and he was wondering if his Aunt Hannah was alone that Christmas Eve, and was thinking just how dark, and ghostly and cold was the interior of that bedroom, whose door was seldom opened, and where no one had ever been since his grandfather's death except his Aunt Hannah and himself. As if divining his thoughts, Bessie said to him: "I wish you would tell us about that house among the rocks. Is it very old?"
"Yes, one of the oldest in Allington," Grey replied, and instantly Archie roused from his usual apathetic State and repeated:
"Allington? Did you say Allington, in Massachusetts?"
"Yes," Grey replied. "Allington, in Massachusetts; about forty miles or so from Boston. Do you know the place?"
"My aunt lives there—the woman for whom Bessie was named, Miss Betsey McPherson. Do you know her?"
"Yes, I used to know her well when I was so often in Allington before my grandfather died," Grey replied, and Neil said to him:
"What manner of woman is she? Something of a shrew, I fancy. I saw her once when I was a boy, and she boxed my ears because I called her old Bet Buttermilk, and she said that I and all the English were fools, because I asked her if there were any wildcats in the woods behind her house."
"Served you right," Grey said, laughingly, and then continued; "She is rather eccentric, I believe, but highly respected in town. My Aunt Lucy is very fond of her. Did you ever see her?" and he turned to Bessie, who replied:
"I saw her once at Aberystwyth, when I was a child; and she afterwards sent me this turquois ring, the only bit of jewelry I own," and Bessie held to the light her hand on which shone the ring Daisy had unwillingly given up to her on the occasion of her last visit to Stoneleigh.
For a long time they sat before the fire talking of America and the places Grey had visited in Europe, and it was rather late when the party finally retired for the night, Neil going to his warm, comfortable room facing the south, and Grey to his cheerless one facing the north, with only the cold and the damp, and the rats for his companions, if we except the bag of hot water he found in his bed, on which Dorothy had put woolen sheets and which she had warmed thoroughly with her big warming-pan.