And he felt relieved. For he was not quite satisfied with his own
want of frankness to her. But here was a way to pay off the debt
he owed her, and yet retain his own dignity. And now he could tell
her what he had done, and he trusted to the ambitious instinct that
prompted her to seek a better education to explain his reasons for
it.

He saw her that evening and confessed all to her frankly. She kept
her head averted, but when she turned her blue eyes to him they
were wet with honest tears. North had a man's horror of a ready
feminine lachrymal gland; but it was not like Bessy to cry, and it
meant something; and then she did it in a large, goddess-like way,
without sniffling, or chocking, or getting her nose red, but rather
with a gentle deliquescence, a harmonious melting, so that he was
fain to comfort her with nearer contact, gentleness in his own sad
eyes, and a pressure of her large hand.

"It's all right, I s'pose," she said, sadly; "but I didn't reckon
on yer havin' any relations, but thought you was alone, like me."

James North, thinking of Hank Fisher and the "mullater," could not
help intimating that his relations were very wealthy and
fashionable people, and had visited him last summer. A
recollection of the manner in which they had so visited him and his
own reception of them prevented his saying more. But Miss Bessy
could not forego a certain feminine curiosity, and asked,--

"Did they come with Sam Baker's team?"