ed as she replied:

"Yes, a little; but I do not mind that. I should like to do something
for you."

"Then go out into the garden in the fresh air and stay there till you
are rested," Miss Betsey answered, abruptly, and, turning on her heel,
she walked away to her own room, where she held communion with herself,
wondering how much longer she could or ought to hold out, "I have tried
her pretty well, and she has not flinched a hair; but I guess I will
wait a day or two, till I have heard from Sarah," she thought, but this
resolution she did not carry out for two reasons, one of which was found
in the letter which she received that afternoon, and the other in the
fact that at tea-time Bessie fainted dead away as she stood by her
auntie's chair.

She had borne so much and suffered so much during the last few months
that nature refused to bear any longer, and it was more than a headache
which brought the faintness upon her. Taking her in her arms, Miss
Betsey carried her to her room, and placing her upon the bed, sat down
beside her.

"Why are you crying?" she asked, as she saw the great tears roll down
Bessie's cheeks faster than she could wipe them away.

"Because," Bessie answered, with a choking sob, "I have tried so hard to
do right, and have wanted work so much, and just as I have found it, I
am afraid I am going to be sick, for I feel so strange and cold, as if
all the life had gone from me, and I cannot work any more, and you will
have to send me away, and I have nowhere to go, for Stoneleigh is very
far away, and I have no money to get there. Oh, auntie, if I could die!
Life has been so dreary to me!"

Here Bessie broke down entirely, and sobbed for a few moments
convulsively, while Miss McPherson was scarcely less agitated.

Kneeling down by the low bed and laying her old face by the side of the
young one upon the pillow, she, too, cried for a few moments like a
child. Then, lifting up her head and brushing away her tears with an
impatient movement, as if she were ashamed of them, she said:

"I cannot hold out any longer, and I must tell you that what I have been
doing was never intended to last; I was only trying you, to see if you
were true, and now that I know you are, do you think I will not take you
to my heart as my child, my very own? I believe I have always loved you,
Bessie, since the day your eyes looked at me on the sands of
Aberystwyth, and I have wanted you so much, and tried so many times to