Mrs. Sefton looked almost happy that night; she thought Edna looked better and more like herself, and she had not coughed once, and no one knew that as the girl took off her trinket that night she suddenly hid her face in her hands and wept.
“It is all no use, mother,” she sobbed; “no money can buy me content nor make me good and happy; if I were only like Bessie—Bessie is worthy of him, but I never was—I never was!”
When Bessie had been with her friends more than a week she began to wonder that there was no news of Richard, and one day she asked Edna if he were all alone at The Grange.
“Yes, I believe so,” was the careless answer; “but Richard is a regular old bachelor, and he will not be dull.”
“But he comes to see you sometimes?”
“He has not been yet, but that is mamma’s fault, and not Ritchie’s; he wrote on Wednesday to say he was coming from Saturday to Monday, but mamma said she wanted the room for Miss Shelton, and after all, she did not come; so it was a pity Richard should be disappointed; and now Miss Shelton may come next week, and there is no room for him again. Mamma has just written to say that she cannot possibly have him until Saturday week.”
Bessie felt a pang of disappointment; she was going home on the Thursday, and would just miss him. What a pity! He had been so kind and friendly to her during her visit at The Grange, and she would have liked to have seen him. She wondered vaguely if he would be disappointed too when he heard that she had gone. It was thoughtless of Mrs. Sefton to invite Miss Shelton, but most likely she had done it on purpose to keep her stepson away. Edna had told her rather sorrowfully the other day that her mother did not understand Richard any better.
“He is never at his ease with her, and so he never appears to advantage in her presence,” she said. “Poor Ritchie! I am afraid he has a dull life at The Grange!”
Bessie was afraid so too, but she dared not say so; she could only appeal to Edna’s generosity, and beg her to consider that she owed a duty to her brother. But she could not say much on this point. A girl cannot well enter the lists on a young man’s behalf; however sensible and free from nonsense she may be, she is bound by a sense of conventionality; and though in her heart Bessie was very sorry for Richard, very much interested in his behalf, she felt her pity must be kept to herself.
Bessie was not ashamed to own her disappointment, and she was human enough to bear a grudge against the offending Miss Shelton, who proved to be an old governess of Edna’s, and a most worthy woman.