It was a moonlight night, and the jalousies looking upon the garden were not closed. Bessie was neither timid nor grievous, but she was desperately wide-awake. The formality of receiving her and showing her to bed had been very briefly despatched. It seemed as if she had been left at the door like a parcel, conveyed up stairs, and put away. Beechhurst was a thousand miles off, and yesterday a hundred years ago! The doctor and Harry Musgrave could hardly have walked back to Thunby's hotel before she and her new comrade were in their little beds. Now, indeed, was the Rubicon passed, and Bessie Fairfax committed to all the vicissitudes of exile. She realized the beginning thereof when she stretched her tired limbs on her unyielding mattress of straw, and recalled her dear little warm nest under the eaves at home. Presently, from a remote couch spoke her one companion, "I am sitting up on end. What are you doing?" "Nothing. Lying down and staring at the moon," replied Bessie, and turned her eyes in the direction of the voice. The figure sitting up on end was distinctly visible. It was clasping its knees, its long hair flowed down its back, and its face was steadily addressed to the window at the foot of its bed. "Do you care to talk?" asked the queer apparition. "I shall not fall asleep for _hours_ yet," said Bessie. "Then let us have a good talk." The unconscious quoter of Dr. Johnson contributed her full share to the colloquy. She told her story, and why she was at Madame Fournier's: "Father's ship comes from Yarmouth in Norfolk. It is there we are at home, but he is nearly always at sea--to and fro to Havre and Caen, to Dunkirk and Bordeaux. It is a fine sailing ship, the Petrel. When the wind blows I think of father, though he has weathered many storms. To-night it will be beautiful on the water. I have often sailed with father." A prodigious sigh closed the paragraph, and drew from Bessie a query that perhaps she wished she was sailing with him now? She did, indeed! "He left me here because I was not well--it is three weeks since; it was the day of the emperor's _fete_--but I am no stronger yet. I have been left here before--once for a whole half-year. I hope it won't be so long this time; I do so miss father! My mother is dead, and he has married another wife. I believe she wishes I were dead too." "Oh no," cried Bessie, much amazed. "I have a mother who is not really my mother, but she is as good as if she were." "Then she is not like mine. Are women all alike? Hush! there is Miss Foster at the door--_listening_.... She is gone now; she didn't peep in.... Tell me, do you hear anything vulgar in my speech?" "No--it is plain enough." It was a question odd and unexpected, and Bessie had to think before she answered it.