"It sounds like tempting them to a wild-goose chase, Bessie. Yachts that
are here to-day are gone to-morrow. By the time they arrive you may have
sailed off to Cowes or to Yarmouth. But I will give your message. How
came you on board a yacht?"
Bessie got no more information from the rector; he had the same
catechising habit as his good wife, and wanted to know her news. She
gave it freely, and then they were at the end of the pier, and there was
the Hampton boat ringing its bell to start. "Are you going straight
home? Will you tell them at once?" Bessie ventured to say again as Mr.
Wiley went down the gangway.
"Yes. I expect to find the carriage waiting for me at Hampton," was the
response.
"They might even come by the afternoon boat," cried Bessie as a last
word, and the rector said, "Yes."
It was with a lightened heart and spirits exhilarated that Bessie
retraced her steps up the pier. "It was such a good opportunity!" said
she, congratulating herself.
"Yes, if the gentleman don't forget," rejoined Mrs. Betts.
But, alas! that was just what the gentleman did. He forgot until his
remembering was too late to be of any purpose. He forgot until the next
Sunday when he was in the reading-desk, and saw Mrs. Carnegie sitting in
front of him with a restless boy on either hand. He felt a momentary
compunction, but that also, as well as the cause of it, went out of his
head with the end of his sermon, and the conclusion of the matter was
that he never delivered the message Bessie had given him on Ryde pier at
all.
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