This was not very reassuring, and Bessie's heart beat rapidly as she went up the steps to the door. She saw the square, straight figure in the chair, and was prepared for the quick, sharp "Come in!" which answered her knock.
Adjusting her spectacles to the right focus, Miss Betsey looked up at her visitor in that scrutinizing, inquisitive manner usual with her, and which made Bessie's knees shake under her as she advanced into the room.
"Who are you?" the look seemed to say, and without waiting to have it put into words Bessie went straight to the woman, and stretching out her hands said, imploringly: "Oh, Aunt Betsey, do you remember a little girl who came to you on the Terrace at Aberystwyth years ago? Little Bessie McPherson, to whom you sent a ring? Here it is," and she pointed to it upon her finger, "and I am she--Bessie, and mother is dead--and I--I am all alone, and I have come to America--to you--not to have you keep me--not to live upon you, but to earn my living--to work for money with which to pay my debts. Two hundred and fifty pounds to Lady Jane for mother's sickness and burial, and five pounds to Anthony. That is the sum--two hundred and fifty-five pounds. Will you let me stay to-night? Can you find me something to do?"
Bessie had told her whole story, and as she told it her face was a study, with its look of eagerness and fear and the bright color which came and went so rapidly, but as she finished speaking left it white as ashes. Miss Betsey's face was a study, too, as she regarded the girl fixedly until she stopped talking; then, motioning her to a chair, she said: "Sit down, child, before you faint away; you are pale as a cloth. Take off your bonnet and have some tea. I suppose you are hungry."
She rang the bell for Susan to bring hot tea and toast, which she made Bessie eat, pressing it upon her until she could take no more.
"Now, then," she said, when the tray had been removed, "one can always talk better on a full stomach. So tell me what you want, and what you expect me to do. But sit over there, where I can see you better; and don't get excited. I shall not eat you; at least, not to-night."
She wanted Bessie in a good light, where she could see her face, from which she never took her eyes, as the girl repeated in substance what she had said at first, making some additions to her story, and speaking of the ship in which she had come, but not of Miss Lucy or Grey.