Locking into the blue eyes fixed so earnestly upon him, Mr. Jerrold read what she meant, and said to her: "You shall do as you like; if Hannah does not object."
Hannah, too, began to get a glimpse of the truth, and so did Grey, and when she said, "You are all willing--it is settled?" they answered yes, and Grey went with her to choose the site for the new house, which in her impetuosity, she declared should be commenced at once saying she would remain in Allington during the summer and superintend it herself.
It was Bessie who choose the site, to the right of the old building and near a great flat rock which she said she meant to have in a corner of the yard, as it would be such a nice play-house for children.
"Yes, a very nice play-house for children," Grey said, winding his arms around her and kissing her blushing cheek, and then they sat down upon the rock and talked of and planned the house, and Bessie told him all that was in her mind in regard to the plateau, which she meant to make as beautiful as a garden, so that no one would ever dream it held a grave.
"I ought to do something for him," she said; "and as my grandmother was fond of flowers, and grass, and singing birds, so I am sure was he, and he shall have them in abundance, and maybe he will know that his sister's granddaughter is doing it for him, and be glad."
In the light of this new idea, Mr. Jerrold, Hannah and Grey entered heart and soul into Bessie's project, and within a week a plan for the cottage had been drawn, and a contract made with the builders who were to commence work at once. Neither Hannah nor Bessie were present when the walls of the main building went crashing down into the cellar they were to fill, but when it came to the bed-room and wood-shed, Hannah, Bessie, Grey and his father sat under a tree at a little distance, watching nervously while the men took down timber after timber, until the spot was clear, and the ground as smooth as it usually is under a floor where there is no cellar.
"Oh," Bessie said, with a sigh of relief, as she turned to Grey, who was sitting next to her, but her eye went past him to Hannah, who, with her hands clasped tightly together, sat as rigid as a block of marble, gazing so intently at the spot which held so much horror for her that she did not at first know when Bessie stole softly to her side; but when the young girl wound her arm around her neck, and kissing her softly, said: "They have let him into the light, and I am so glad; it does not seem now like a hidden grave," the tension on her nerves gave way, and she burst into a paroxysm of tears, the very last she ever shed over that hidden grave. For, like Bessie, she felt better, now that the sunlight was falling upon it, and by and by, when everything was accomplished, and Bessie had carried out her idea, she felt that the dead man's monument would be worthy of a far nobler personage than he who slept beneath it.