"
For an instant Bessie moved uneasily, then slept again, while Grey
watched her with a great hunger in his heart and a longing to take her
in his arms, and, in spite of a hundred Neils, tell her of his love. How
beautiful she was in that calm sleep, and Grey noted every point of
beauty, from the sheen of her golden hair to the dimpled hand which was
just within his reach.
"Poor little hand," he said, laying his own carefully upon it; "how much
it has done for others. Oh, if I could only call it mine, it should
never know toil again."
He might have raised it to his lips if just then the eyes had not
unclosed, as with a start Bessie awoke and looked wonderingly at him for
an instant; then, instead of withdrawing her hand from his, she held the
other towards him, and raising herself up, cried out:
"Oh, Mr. Jerrold, I am so glad! Nothing is half so dreary now that I
know you are on the ship, and you will tell Neil it was not my fault
that you found me. He may be very angry."
At the mention of Neil a feeling of constraint crept over Grey, and he
quietly released his hands from Bessie's lest he should say to her words
he ought not to say to one who was plighted to another.
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