Bessie, who was fancy-free, and a lively-spirited girl, by no means relished the slights and privations which poverty entails. She therefore willingly became bound by this solemn promise; and when her father breathed his last, declaring that she had made his mind comparatively easy, little Bessie half smiled, even in the midst of her deep and natural sorrow, to think how small and easy a concession her poor father had exacted, when her own opinions and views so perfectly coincided with his. The orphan girl took up her abode with the mother of David Danvers, and continued to reside with that worthy lady until the latter's decease. It was beneath the roof of Mrs Danvers that Bessie first became acquainted with Mr Worthington--that acquaintance speedily ripening into a mutual and sincere attachment. He was poor and patronless then, as he had continued ever since, with slender likelihood of ever possessing L.100 of his own, much less L.1000 to settle on a wife. It is true, that in the chances and changes of this mortal life, Paul Worthington might succeed to a fine inheritance; but there were many lives betwixt him and it, and Paul was not the one to desire happiness at another's expense, nor was sweet little Bessie either. Yet was Paul Worthington rich in one inestimable possession, such as money cannot purchase--even in the love of a pure devoted heart, which for him, and for his dear sake, bravely endured the life-long loneliness and isolation which their peculiar circumstances induced. Paul did not see Bessie grow old and gray: in his eyes, she never changed; she was to him still beautiful, graceful, and enchanting; she was his betrothed, and he came forth into the world, from his books, and his arduous clerical and parochial duties, to gaze at intervals into her soft eyes, to press her tiny hand, to whisper a fond word, and then to return to his lonely home, like a second Josiah Cargill, to try and find in severe study oblivion of sorrow. Annie Mortimer had been sent to him as a ministering angel: she was the orphan and penniless daughter of Mr Worthington's dearest friend and former college-chum, and she had come to find a shelter beneath the humble roof of the pious guardian, to whose earthly care she had been solemnly bequeathed. Paul's curacy was not many miles distant from the town where Bessie had fixed her resting-place; and it was generally surmised by the select few who were in the secret of little Bessie's singular history, that she regarded Annie Mortimer with especial favour and affection, from the fact, that Annie enjoyed the privilege of solacing and cheering Paul Worthington's declining years. Each spoke of her as a dear adopted daughter, and Annie equally returned the affection of both. Poor solitaries! what long anxious years they had known, separated by circumstance, yet knit together in the bonds of enduring love!