It was strange how vividly that wavy hair brought Bessie back
to the young men who had loved her so much, and who, at sight of it,
broke down entirely, and laying their heads upon the table, cried for a
moment, as only strong men can cry, for the dear little girl who, they
felt sure, was lying in her grave in far off Stoneleigh.
CHAPTER IV.
POOR DAISY.
Four weeks passed away, and Grey, with his Aunt Lucy, was journeying
through Russia, bearing with him a sense of loss and pain. The mails
were very irregular, and he had never heard a word either from Flossie
or Neil, nor had he written to them. He could not yet bring himself to
speak of Bessie, even upon paper, though he sometimes felt a little
aggrieved that Neil did not write to him and tell him of his loss. And
so the weeks went on, and one day, toward the middle of April, when the
English skies were at their best and the hyacinths and crocuses were
blooming in the yew-shaded garden at Stoneleigh, a little band of
mourners went down the broad graveled walk to the inclosure, where in
the narrow space between Archie's grave and the wall another grave was
made, and there in silence and in tears they buried--not Bessie--but her
mother, poor, weak, frivolous Daisy, who had succumbed to the fever and
died after a three weeks' illness.
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