But as Bessie sat for
his heroine and Grey Jerrold for his hero, he became furiously jealous
when he reached the love passages, and tearing up his manuscript in
disgust, abandoned the field of authorship forever.
Suddenly his thoughts turned to the old aunt in America, whom, his fancy
painted as fabulously rich. She could help him, and perhaps if he wrote
her the right kind of a letter she would. And so he set himself to the
task, which proved harder, even, than the story-writing had been. Neil
knew his Aunt Betsey was very eccentric, and he hardly knew how to make
her under stand him without saying too much and so ruining his cause.
"By Jove, I'll tell her the truth, that I want money in order to marry
Bessie," he said, and he took Bessie for his starting paint, and waxed
eloquent as he described her sweetness and beauty, and told of her life
of toil and care and self-denial at Stoneleigh, with her father, whom he
represented as just on the verge of the grave. Then he told of his
engagement and his mother's fierce opposition to it, and the sure
poverty which awaited him if he remained true to his cousin, as he meant
to do, and then he came to the real object of his letter, and asked for
money on which to live until his mother was reconciled, as she was sure
to be in time, when she knew how lovely and good Bessie was.
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