"Anything I can find," Bessie answered, decidedly.
Neil only smiled and thought how sure it was that once with her aunt she would become a favorite, and eventually, an heiress to the fortune he so greatly coveted.
He should miss her, he knew, and still it would be a relief not to have her on his mind, as she would be, if left alone at Stoneleigh. So, on the whole, she had done wisely when she planned to go to America, and he did not oppose her, but said he would be in Liverpool the 25th, to see her off. He did not ask if she had the necessary funds for the voyage; he had trouble enough on that score, and was not likely soon to forget the scene, or rather succession of scenes, enacted at Trevellian House, when Mrs. Meredith's bills were presented to his mother, who, but for shame's sake, would have repudiated them at once as something she was not lawfully obliged to pay.
Neither did he inquire who Mrs. Goodnough was, and did not know that she was a poor woman who had worked in the fields, and was going out to New York, not as first-class passenger nor even second, but as steerage, and Bessie's ticket was of the same nature. She had but little money, and when she heard from Mrs. Goodnough, who was a friend of Dorothy's, and who had once been in America, that a steerage passage was oftentimes very comfortable, and that many respectable people took it because of its cheapness, she put aside all feelings of pride, and said to Mrs. Goodnough:
"I will go steerage with you," and from this plan she never swerved.
But she would not tell Neil then; time enough at the last when he came to see her off, and must, of course, know the truth.
She knew he would be very angry, and probably insist upon paying the difference, but she could take no more money from him, and her blood was hot whenever she reflected what she had heard him say to Flossie of the bills incurred in Rome, and which she meant to pay to the uttermost farthing, if her life was spared and she found something to do in the new world, where to work was not degrading. But she must know the amount, and she timidly asked Neil to tell her how much it was.
"Enough! I assure you. Those Italians are rascals and cheats—the whole of them; but it need not trouble you, the debt is paid," he said, a little bitterly. But Bessie insisted upon knowing, and finally wrung from him that two hundred and fifty pounds would probably cover the whole indebtedness.
"Bringing mother home and all?" Bessie asked, and he replied:
"Yes, bringing her home and all; that was a useless expense."