"
Upon one point, however, he was still resolved; he would remain at
Stoneleigh and keep Bessie with him. Nothing could change that decision.
Daisy would of course go where she pleased. He could not restrain her,
and as many Englishwomen did travel alone on the Continent, she might
escape remark in that respect, and be no more talked about than if he
were with her. At first Daisy objected to this plan. It was necessary
for her to earn their living, she said, and the least Archie could do
was to give the support of his presence. But Archie was firm, and when
in February Daisy started again on her trip, which had for its
destination Monte Carlo and Genoa, Archie was left behind with his
twenty-pound note, which he had not yet touched, and with Bessie as his
only companion.
CHAPTER VI.
SEVEN YEARS LATER.
Seven years, and from a lovely child of eight years old Bessie McPherson
had grown to a wonderfully beautiful girl of fifteen, whose face once
seen could never be forgotten, it was so sweet, and pure, and refined,
and yet so sad in its expression at times, as if she carried some burden
heavier than the care of her father, who was fast sinking into a state
of confirmed invalidism, and to whom she devoted all the freshness of
her young life, with no thought for herself or her own comfort.
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