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“It’s a go,” replied North, cheerfully.

And he felt relieved. For he was not quite satisfied with his own want of frankness to her. But here was a way to pay off the debt he owed her, and yet retain his own dignity. And now he could tell her what he had done, and he trusted to the ambitious instinct that prompted her to seek a better education to explain his reasons for it.

He saw her that evening and confessed all to her frankly. She kept her head averted, but when she turned her blue eyes to him they were wet with honest tears. North had a man’s horror of a ready feminine lachrymal gland; but it was not like Bessy to cry, and it meant something; and then she did it in a large, goddess-like way, without sniffling, or chocking, or getting her nose red, but rather with a gentle deliquescence, a harmonious melting, so that he was fain to comfort her with nearer contact, gentleness in his own sad eyes, and a pressure of her large hand.

“It’s all right, I s’pose,” she said, sadly; “but I didn’t reckon on yer havin’ any relations, but thought you was alone, like me.”

James North, thinking of Hank Fisher and the “mullater,” could not help intimating that his relations were very wealthy and fashionable people, and had visited him last summer. A recollection of the manner in which they had so visited him and his own reception of them prevented his saying more. But Miss Bessy could not forego a certain feminine curiosity, and asked,–

“Did they come with Sam Baker’s team?”

“Yes.”

“Last July?”

“Yes.”

“And Sam drove the horses here for a bite?”

“I believe so.”

“And them’s your relations?”

“They are.”

Miss Robinson reached over the cradle and enfolded the sleeping infant in her powerful arms. Then she lifted her eyes, wrathful through her still glittering tears, and said, slowly, “They don’t–have–this–child–then!”

“But why?”

“Oh, why? I saw them! That’s why, and enough! You can’t play any such gay and festive skeletons on this poor baby for flesh and blood parents. No, sir!”

“I think you judge them hastily, Miss Bessy,” said North, secretly amused; “my aunt may not, at first, favorably impress strangers, yet she has many friends. But surely you do not object to my cousin Maria, the young lady?”

“What! that dried cuttle-fish, with nothing livin’ about her but her eyes? James North, ye may be a fool like the old woman,–perhaps it’s in the family,–but ye ain’t a devil, like that gal! That ends it.”

And it did. North dispatched a second letter to Maria saying that he had already made other arrangements for the baby. Pleased with her easy victory, Miss Bessy became more than usually gracious, and the next day bowed her shapely neck meekly to the yoke of her teacher, and became a docile pupil. James North could not have helped noticing her ready intelligence, even had he been less prejudiced in her favor than he was fast becoming now. If he had found it pleasant before to be admonished by her there was still more delicious flattery in her perfect trust in his omniscient skill as a pilot over this unknown sea. There was a certain enjoyment in guiding her hand over the writing-book, that I fear he could not have obtained from an intellect less graciously sustained by its physical nature. The weeks flew quickly by on gossamer wings, and when she placed a bunch of larkspurs and poppies in his hand one morning, he remembered for the first that it was spring.

I cannot say that there was more to record of Miss Bessy’s education than this. Once North, half jestingly, remarked that he had never yet seen her admirer, Mr. Hank Fisher. Miss Bessy (coloring but cool)–“You never will!” North (white but hot)–“Why?” Miss Bessy (faintly)–“I’d rather not.” North (resolutely)–“I insist.” Bessy (yielding)–“As my teacher?” North (hesitatingly, at the limitation of the epithet)–“Y-e-e-s!” Bessy–“And you’ll promise never to speak of it again?” North–“Never.” Bessy (slowly)–“Well, he said I did an awful thing to go over to your cabin and stay.” North (in the genuine simplicity of a refined nature)–“But how?” Miss Bessy (half piqued, but absolutely admiring that nature)–“Quit! and keep your promise!”