The case seemed hopeless, and Jennie might have lost her place but for the serious illness which came upon Bessie, taking away all her vitality, and making her weak and helpless as a child. It was then that Jennie showed her real value, and by her watchful tenderness and untiring devotion, more than made amends for all her awkwardness.
Day after day, and night after night, she staid in the sick room, ministering to Bessie as no one else could have done, lifting her tenderly in her strong arms, and sometimes walking with her up and down the large chamber into which she had been carried when the physician said her sickness might be of weeks' duration, for she was suffering from all the fatigue and worry of the last two years, when the strain upon her nerves had been so great.
All through the remaining weeks of summer, and the September days which followed, Bessie lay in her bed, scarcely noticing any thing which was passing around her, and saying to her aunt when she bent over her, asking how she felt:
"Tired, so tired, and it is nice to rest."
And so the days went by, and everybody in Allington became interested in the young girl whom few had seen, but of whom a great deal was told by Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, whose carriage often stood at Miss McPherson's door, bringing sometimes the lady herself, and sometimes Augusta, who had returned from Saratoga, and was busy with the preparations for her wedding, which was to take place in October.
Lord Hardy, who had come from the West, and established himself at the Ridge House, called several times and left his card, which Miss McPherson promptly burned.
She did not like Lord Hardy. He was just a fortune-hunter, she said, and cared no more for Augusta Browne than he did for her, except that Augusta was the younger of the two, and she could not forget how he had looked, smirking and mincing by the side of Archie's wife at Aberystwyth; poor, weak Daisy, who, but for him, might not have gone so far astray as she did.
For Bessie's sake Miss McPherson was almost ready to forgive poor Daisy, as she always called her now when thinking of her. For Bessie's sake she felt that she could do a great deal that was contrary to her nature, but she could not feel kindly disposed toward Neil, for immediately after the receipt of her letter to his mother, containing two hundred and fifty pounds, and the announcement that she intended to take Bessie as her own child, Neil had written her a long, penitent letter, blaming himself as a coward, and telling of his remorse and regret for the past, and saying that, unless he was forbidden to do so, he should come to America in September, and renew his offer to Bessie.
This letter Miss McPherson read with sundry expressions of disgust, and then, taking from its peg her sun-hat, almost as large as a small umbrella, she started for the telegraph office, and several hours later Neil McPherson, in London, was reading the following laconic dispatch from Allington:
"Stay at home and mind your own business!