"She is a steerage passenger, and I am steerage, too," Bessie said, very quietly, while Neil dropped her hand as if it had burned him.
"Bessie, what do you mean?" he exclaimed, glancing down upon her and stopping suddenly.
"Let us go inside. Do not make a scene here, please," Bessie answered him, in a low, firm voice, while her cheek grew a shade paler and something shone in her eyes which Neil had never seen there before.
"A private parlor, please; a small one will answer," he said to the clerk at the bureau; and in a few moments he was sitting with Bessie at his side, asking her to tell him what she meant by saying she was steerage, too.
"It means," she began, unfalteringly, "that I have no money for a first class ticket, which costs more than three times as much as steerage. Many respectable people go out that way, and it is very comfortable. The Germanic is a new boat, and all the apartments are clean and nice, I am not ashamed of it. I am ashamed of nothing, except the debt I owe your mother, and that I had to borrow five pounds of Anthony, who insisted upon giving it to me but I would not take it. Why do you look at me so strangely, Neil? Do you think I have committed the unpardonable sin?"
"Bessie," Neil began, huskily, and in a voice choked with passion, "this is the drop too much. I knew you had some low instincts, but never dreamed you could stoop to this degradation, which affects me as much as it does you. But it is not too late to change, and you must do it."
"No, Neil, I cannot. I have barely enough to get there as it is," she replied, and he continued: "Mother sent you five pounds with her compliments. Will that do? Here it is," and he offered her the note, which she put aside quickly, as she said: "I cannot take that from your mother. Give it back to her, and, if you think she meant it well, thank her for me, and tell her I shall pay the whole some day when I earn it."
She emphasized the last words, and, more angry than before, Neil exclaimed: "Earn it! Why will you persist in such nonsense, as if you were a common char-woman? You know as well as I that you are going to Aunt Betsey with the hope to get some of her money, as you unquestionably will."
"Neil, I am not," Bessie answered, firmly. "I am going to America, because there I can work and be respected, too, while here, according to your code, I cannot."