An' sure, would ye be so kind as to try yerself what ye can
do?"
"Talking of Grey!" Lucy repeated, ten times more perplexed than she had
been before. "How does she know my nephew, and who is she?" Then,
turning to Mrs. Goodnough, she continued: "There is some mystery here
which I must solve, I fancied this morning that she might be Bessie
McPherson, of Stoneleigh Park, Bangor, but my nephew tells me that she
died in Rome--and if so, who is this young girl?"
"Oh, madam," Mrs. Goodnough began, "there can be no harm in telling you
now, though she didn't want anybody to know; not for herself--she ain't
a bit ashamed, but some of her high friends is, and made her promise to
keep to herself who she was; but you are bound to know, and she _is_
Miss Bessie McPherson, of Stoneleigh, and she is not dead at all, and
never has been. She had the fever in Rome, but she got well, and it was
her mother who died there; this is the truth, and may God forgive me if
I have done harm by my tattling."
"You have done no harm," Lucy replied, "but on the contrary a great good
to Miss McPherson, whom I shall at once have removed to my state-room.
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