So I scribbled a little note
to Bessie, and sent it off by the pilot: I don't know where you were
when the pilot went. This is, as nearly as I remember it, what I
wrote:
"'DEAR BESSIE: Charlie Munro is on board. He must have
changed his passage to be with us. I know from something
that he has just told _me_ that this is so, and that he
consoles himself already for your coldness. You remember
what I told you when we talked about him. I shall _try_ now.
F.M.'
"Bessie would know what that meant. Oh, must I tell you what a weak,
weak girl I was? When I found out at Lenox, as I thought, that Bessie
did not care for you, I said to her that once I thought you _had_
cared for me, but that papa had offended you by his manner--you
weren't of an old Knickerbocker family, you know--and had given you to
understand that your visits were not acceptable.
"I am sure now that it was because I wanted to think so that I put
that explanation upon your ceasing to visit me, and because papa
always looked so decidedly _queer_ whenever your name was mentioned.
"I had always had everything in life that I wanted, and I believed
that in due time you would come back to me.
"Bessie knew well enough what that pilot-letter meant, for here is her
answer."
Pinned fast to the end of Fanny's letter, so that by no chance should
I read it first, were these words in my darling's hand:
"Got your pilot-letter.
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