Neil, on the contrary, forgave her fully for the annoyance he had felt,
and immediately after breakfast the next morning he started for Mrs.
Buncher's. Bessie was trying on the hat when he entered. She had
received the box only a few moments before, and had readily guessed that
Neil was the donor, and had in part divined his motive.
"He was ashamed of my old gown and hat; and they are rather the worse
for the wear, and looked very shabby among the fine dresses in the park.
But they are the best I have, unless I make over those mother sent
me--and that I cannot do," she thought, as she remembered, with a pang,
the trunkful of half-worn garments of various kinds, which her mother
had sent her from time to time, and which she could never bring herself
to wear, because of the association. They had been worn in the moral
mire of Monte Carlo and other places equally disreputable, and Bessie
could no more have put them on than she could have adopted her mother's
habits. In her linen dress, which she bought with money paid her for
roses by the ladies who frequented the "George," she felt pure and
respectable.
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