"Then Neil has not asked you, and you will go with me?" Jack said,
addressing himself to Archie, who replied:
"If Bessie likes--yes; and I thank you so much. You are giving my
little girl a greater pleasure than you can ever guess."
Meanwhile the color had all faded from Bessie's face, leaving it very
pale, as she stood with clasped hands and wide-open eyes, looking first
at herself in the glass and then at Jack. She was thinking of her old
linen dress and hat, and of her father's clothes. Neil was ashamed of
them, her father had said, and she believed him, though it hurt her
cruelly to do so. Would not Mr. Trevellian be ashamed of them too, when
he came to realize the contrast there was between them and the people of
his set who daily frequented the park?
"What do you say, Miss McPherson? Will you go?" Jack asked, and she
answered quickly:
"I'd like it, so much; but I thought--I'm quite sure we had better not;"
and as she thus gave up the happiness she had so coveted, she burst into
tears--tears for her poverty, and tears for Neil, who had not been so
kind to them as this stranger was.
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