wide-open eyes, looking first
at herself in the glass and then at Jack. She was thinking of her old
linen dress and hat, and of her father's clothes. Neil was ashamed of
them, her father had said, and she believed him, though it hurt her
cruelly to do so. Would not Mr. Trevellian be ashamed of them too, when
he came to realize the contrast there was between them and the people of
his set who daily frequented the park?

"What do you say, Miss McPherson? Will you go?" Jack asked, and she
answered quickly:

"I'd like it, so much; but I thought--I'm quite sure we had better not;"
and as she thus gave up the happiness she had so coveted, she burst into
tears--tears for her poverty, and tears for Neil, who had not been so
kind to them as this stranger was.

"Why, Bessie," her father said, "what is the matter? I thought you
wanted to drive."

"I do, I do," she sobbed; then, with a quick, impatient movement she
dashed the tears from her eyes which shone like stars as she lifted them
bravely to Jack Trevellian and said, with a tinge of pride in her lone:
"I should enjoy the drive more than anything else in the world, and it
was kind in you to ask us; but, Mr. Trevellian, you don't know what it
would be to you to be seen there with father and me--he in his darned
coat and I in this gown, the best I have here, or anywhere, for summer;
and then, my hat; the ribbons are all faded and poor, just as we are,
dear father and I;" and as she talked she stepped to her father's side
and wound her arms around his neck.

There was a world of pathos in the low, sweet voice which said so sadly,
"dear father and I," and it moved Jack with a strange power, bringing a
moisture to his eyes where tears had not been in years.

Mastering his weakness Jack burst into a merry laugh which was good to
hear, as he said:

"Is it the gown, and the hat, and the old darned coat? And do you think
I care for trifles like these? I tell you honestly, I would rather take
your linen gown, to drive this afternoon, with you in it, than the most
elegant dress in London and you out of it."

And so it was arranged that they should go, and Jack staid on and on,
and read aloud to Bessie, and told her of his travels in the East, and
in Australia, and then, he scarcely knew how or why, he spoke of the old
Trevellian home in the north of England, near the border. Trevellian
Castle it was called, he said, and it had been in the family for years.

"I have two cousin