One week later, there came a letter from old Anthony, saying he had received a small package by express from London, directed to Miss Betsey McPherson, care of Archibald McPherson. Should he keep it till his master returned, or should he forward it to Aberystwyth? Archie replied that he was to forward it, and two days after there came to him a small box, containing a lovely turquois ring, of five stones, unmistakably real, with a good sized pearl in the center, and on the gold band was inscribed, "Little Betsey, 18--"
That settled the question, of the donor, and Daisy laughed till she cried over what she called the old woman's spite.
"Nasty old cat," she said, "why didn't she send some money instead of this bauble, which is a deal too large for the child? She can't wear it in years. I must say, though, that it is very beautiful, and the old thing did herself justice when she bought it. Look, Archie, it fits me perfectly!" and she slipped it onto her finger, where it remained; for, as she said, Bessie could not wear it then, and it might as well do somebody some good.
Archie wrote at once to his aunt, inclosing a card on which Bessie had printed with infinite pains, "I got the ring; thank you ever so much."
By some fatality this letter, which was directed to Allington, Mass., U.S.A., went astray, and was never received by Miss McPherson, who half expected it, and who, with the memory of the blue-eyed child upon the sands fresh in her mind, was prepared to answer it. But no letter came to her, or went to Archie either, and so two people were disappointed, and the chasm widened between them, Archie imputing it to his aunt's peculiar nature, and she charging it all to that Jezebel, as she stigmatized Daisy, of whom she had heard most exaggerated accounts from her brother's wife, the Lady Jane.