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   :PG.Id: 37467
   :PG.Title: Daisy Thornton
   :PG.Released: 2011-09-17
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Roger Frank
   :PG.Producer: Mary Meehan
   :PG.Producer: the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
   :PG.Credits:
   :DC.Creator: Mrs. Mary J. Holmes
   :MARCREL.ill:
   :DC.Title: Daisy Thornton
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1878

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==============
DAISY THORNTON
==============

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   This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
   almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
   re-use it under the terms of the `Project Gutenberg License`_
   included with this eBook or online at
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      Title: Daisy Thornton
      
      Author: Mrs. Mary J. Holmes
      
      Release Date: September 17, 2011 [EBook #37467]
      
      Language: English
      
      Character set encoding: UTF-8

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      \*\*\* START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAISY THORNTON \*\*\*

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      Produced by Roger Frank, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

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.. class:: center large

 | BY MRS. MARY J. HOLMES,

 | AUTHOR OF
 | :small-caps:`Tempest and Sunshine.—'Lena Rivers.—Darkness and Daylight.`
 | :small-caps:`—Marian Grey.—English Orphans.—Hugh Worthington.—Millbank.`
 | :small-caps:`—Ethelyn's Mistake.—Edna Browning, Etc., Etc.`

    "Those whom God has joined together let no man put asunder."

.. class:: center medium

   | NEW YORK:
   | Copyright, 1878, by
   | *G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers*.
   |
   | LONDON: S. LOW & CO.
   |
   | MDCCCLXXX.
   |
   | :small-caps:`Samuel Stodder`,
   | :small-caps:`Stereotyper`,
   | :small-caps:`90 Ann Street, N.Y.`
   |
   |
   | :small-caps:`Trow`
   | :small-caps:`Printing and Bookbinding`
   | :small-caps:`Company.`

----

.. contents:: CONTENTS
   :depth: 1
   :backlinks: entry

----


.. class:: center x-large

DAISY THORNTON





CHAPTER I.—EXTRACTS FROM MISS FRANCES THORNTON'S JOURNAL.
=========================================================

.. class:: right

Elmwood, June 15th, 18—.

I have been working among my flowers
all the morning, digging, weeding and
transplanting, and then stopping a little
to rest. My roses are perfect beauties this year, while
my white lilies are the wonder of the town, and yet my
heart was not with them to-day, and it was nothing to
me that those fine people from the Towers came into
the grounds while I was at work, "just to see and admire,"
they said, adding that there was no place in
Cuylerville like Elmwood. I know that, and Guy and
I have been so happy here, and I loved him so much,
and never dreamed what was in store for me until it
came suddenly like a heavy blow.

Why should he wish to marry, when he has lived
to be thirty years old without a care of any kind, and
has money enough to allow him to indulge his taste
for books, and pictures, and travel, and is respected by
everybody, and looked up to as the first man in town,
and petted and cared for by me as few brothers have
ever been petted and cared for? and if he must marry,
why need he take a child of sixteen, whom he has only
known since Christmas, and whose sole recommendation,
so far as I can learn, is her pretty face?

Daisy McDonald is her name, and she lives in Indianapolis,
where her father is a poor lawyer, and as
I have heard, a scheming, unprincipled man. Guy
met her last winter in Chicago, and fell in love at
once, and made two or three journeys West on "important
business," he said, and then, some time in
May, told me he was going to bring me a sister, the
sweetest little creature, with beautiful blue eyes and
wonderful hair. I was sure to love her, he said, and
when I suggested that she was very young, he replied
that her youth was in her favor, as we could more
easily mould her to the Thornton pattern.

Little he knows about girls; but then he was perfectly
infatuated and blind to everything but Daisy's
eyes, and hair, and voice, which is so sweet and winning
that it will speak for her at once. Then she is
so dainty and refined, he said, and he asked me to see
to the furnishing of the rooms on the west side of the
house, the two which communicate with his own private
library, where he spends a great deal of time
with his books and writing. The room adjoining this
was to be Daisy's boudoir or parlor, where she could sit
when he was occupied and she wished to be near him.
This was to be fitted up in blue, as she had expressed
a wish to that effect, and he said no expense must be
spared to make it as pretty and attractive as possible.
So the walls were frescoed and tinted, and I spent two
entire days in New York hunting for a carpet of the
desirable shade, which should be right both in texture
and design.

Guy was exceedingly particular, and developed a
wonderful proclivity to find fault with everything I
admired. Nothing was quite the thing for Daisy, until
at last a manufacturer offered to get a carpet up which
was sure to suit, and so that question was happily settled
for the time being. Then came the furniture, and
unlimited orders were given to the upholsterer to do his
best, and matters were progressing finely when order
number two came from the little lady, who was sorry
to seem so fickle, but her mamma, whose taste was
perfect, had decided against *all* blue, and would Guy
please furnish the room with drab trimmed with blue?

"It must be a very delicate shade of drab," she wrote,
and lest he should get too intense an idea, she would
call it a *tint* of a *shade* of drab, or, better yet, a *hint*
of a tint of a shade of drab would describe exactly
what she meant, and be so entirely unique, and lovely,
and *recherche*.

Guy never swears, and seldom uses slang of any
kind, but this was a little too much, and with a most
rueful expression of countenance he asked me "what
in thunder I supposed a hint of a tint of a shade of
drab could be?"

I could not enlighten him, and we finally concluded
to leave it to the upholsterer, to whom Guy telegraphed
in hot haste, bidding him hunt New York
over for the desired shade. Where he found it I
never knew; but find it he did, or something approximating
to it,—a faded, washed-out color, which seemed
a cross between wood-ashes and pale skim milk. A
sample was sent up for Guy's approval, and then the
work commenced again, when order number three
came in one of those dainty little billets which used to
make Guy's face radiant with happiness. Daisy had
changed her mind again and gone back to the blue,
which she always preferred as most becoming to her
complexion.

Guy did not say a single word, but he took the
next train for New York, and staid there till the furniture
was done and packed for Cuylerville. As I did
not know where he was stopping, I could not forward
him two letters which came during his absence, and
which bore the Indianapolis post-mark. I suspect he
had a design in keeping his address from me, and,
whether Daisy changed her mind again or not, I never
knew.

The furniture reached Elmwood the day but one
before Guy started for his bride, and Julia Hamilton,
who was then at the Towers, helped me arrange the
room, which is a perfect little gem, and cannot fail to
please, I am sure. I wonder Guy never fancied Julia
Hamilton. Oh, if he only had done so, I should not
have as many misgivings as I now have, nor dread the
future so much. Julia is sensible and twenty years
old, and lives in Boston, and comes of a good family,
and is every way suitable,—but when did a man ever
choose the woman whom his sister thought suitable
for him? And Guy is like other men, and this is his
wedding day; and after a trip to Montreal, and Quebec,
and Boston, and New York, and Saratoga, they
are coming home, and I am to give a grand reception,
and then subside, I suppose, into the position of the
"old maid sister who will be dreadfully in the
way."

----

.. class:: right

September 15th, 18—.

Just three months since I opened my journal, and,
on glancing over what I wrote on Guy's wedding day,
I find that in one respect at least I was unjust to the
little creature who is now my sister, and calls me Miss
Frances. Not by a word or look has she shown the
least inclination to assume the position of mistress of
the house, nor does she seem to think me at all in the
way; but that she considers me quite an antediluvian
I am certain, for, in speaking of something which happened
in 1820, she asked if I remembered it! And I
only three years older than Guy! But then she once
called him a dear old grandfatherly man, and thought
it a good joke that on their wedding tour she was mistaken
for his daughter. She looks so young,—not sixteen
even; but with those childish blue eyes, and that
innocent, pleading kind of expression, she never can
be old. She is very beautiful, and I can understand
in part Guy's infatuation, though at times he hardly
knows what to do with his pretty plaything.

It was the middle of August when they came from
Saratoga, sorely against her wishes, as I heard from
the Porters, who were at the same hotel, and who
have told me what a sensation she created, and how
much attention she received. Everybody flattered
her, and one evening, when there was to be a hop at
Congress Hall, she received twenty bouquets from as
many different admirers, each of whom asked her
hand for the first dance. And even Guy tried some
of the square dances,—with poor success, I imagine,
for Lucy Porter laughed when she told me of it, and
the mistakes he made; and I do not wonder, for my
grave, scholarly Guy must be as much out of place in
a ball-room as his little, airy, doll of a wife is in her
place when there. I can understand just how she
enjoyed it all, and how she hated to come to Elmwood,
for she did not then know the kind of home she was
coming to.

It was glorious weather for August, and a rain of
the previous day had washed all the flowers and
shrubs, and freshened up the grass on the lawn, which
was just like a piece of velvet, while everything
around the house seemed to laugh in the warm afternoon
sunshine as the carriage came up to the door.
Eight trunks, two hat-boxes, and a guitar-case had
come in the morning, and were waiting the arrival of
their owner, whose face looked eagerly out at the
house and its surroundings, and it seemed to me did
not light up as much as it should have done under the
circumstances.

"Why, Guy, I always thought the house was
brick," I heard her say, as the carriage door was
opened by the coachman.

"No, darling,—wood. Ah, there's Fan," was Guy's
reply, and the next moment I had her in my arms.

Yes, literally in my arms. She is such a wee little
thing, and her face is so sweet, and her eyes so
childish and wistful and her voice so musical and flute-like
that before I knew what I was doing I lifted her
from her feet and hugged her hard, and said I meant
to love her, first for Guy's sake, and then for her own.
Was it my fancy, I wonder, or did she really shrink
back a little and put up her hands to arrange the
bows, and streamers, and curls floating away from her
like the flags on a vessel on some gala day.

She was very tired, Guy said, and ought to lie
down before dinner. Would I show her to her room
with Zillah, her maid? Then for the first time I noticed
a dark-haired girl who had alighted from the
carriage and stood holding Daisy's traveling-bag and
wraps.

"Her waiting-maid, whom we found in Boston,"
Guy explained, when we were alone. "She is so
young and helpless, and wanted one so badly, that I
concluded to humor her for a time, especially as I had
not the most remote idea how to pin on those wonderful
fixings which she wears. It is astonishing how
many things it takes to make up the *tout ensemble* of a
fashionable woman," Guy said, and I thought he
glanced with an unusual amount of curiosity and
interest at my plain cambric wrapper and smooth hair.

Indeed he has taken it upon himself to criticise me
somewhat; thinks I am too slim, as he expresses it,
and that my head might be improved if it had a more
snarly appearance. Daisy, of course, stands for his
model, and her hair does not look as if it had been
combed in a month, and yet Zillah spends hours over
it. She,—that is, Daisy,—was pleased with her boudoir,
and gave vent to sundry exclamations of delight
when she entered it, skipped around like the child she
is, and said she was so glad it was blue instead of that
indescribable drab, and that room is almost the only
thing she has expressed an opinion about since she
has been here. She does not talk much except to
Zillah, and then in French, which I do not understand.
If I were to write just what I think I should say that
she had expected a great deal more grandeur than she
finds. At all events, she takes the things which I
think very nice and even elegant as a matter of
course, and if we were to set up a style of living equal
to that of the queen's household, I do believe she
would act as if she had been accustomed to it all her
life, or, at least, that it was what she had a right to
expect. I know she imagines Guy a great deal richer
than he is; and that reminds me of something which
troubles me.

Guy has given his name to Dick Trevylian for
one hundred thousand dollars. To be sure it is only
for three months, and Dick is worth three times that
amount, and is an old friend and every way reliable
and honest. And still I did not want Guy to sign. I
wonder why it is that women always jump at a conclusion
without any apparent reason. Of course, I
could not explain it, but when Guy told me what he
was going to do, I felt in an instant as if he would
have it all to pay, and told him so, but he only
laughed at me and called me nervous and fidgety, and
said a friend was good for nothing if he could not
lend a helping hand occasionally. Perhaps that is
true, but I was uneasy and shall be glad when the
time is up and the paper canceled.

Our expenses since Daisy came are double what
they were before, and if we were to lose one hundred
thousand dollars now we should be badly off. Daisy
is a luxury Guy has to pay for, but he pays willingly
and seems to grow more and more infatuated every
day. "She is such a sweet-tempered, affectionate
little puss," he says; and I admit to myself that she
is sweet-tempered, and that nothing ruffles her, but
about the affectionate part I am not so certain. Guy
would pet her and caress her all the time if she would
let him, but she won't.

"O, please don't touch me. It is too warm, and
you muss my dress," I have heard her say more than
once when he came in and tried to put his arm about
her or take her in his lap.

Indeed, her dress seems to be uppermost in her
mind, and I have known her to try on half a dozen
different ones before she could decide in which she
looked the best. No matter what Guy is doing, or
how deeply he is absorbed in his studies, she makes
him stop and inspect her from all points, and give his
opinion, and Guy submits in a way perfectly wonderful
to me who never dared to disturb him when
shut up with his books.

Another thing, too, he submits to which astonishes
me more than anything else. It used to annoy him
terribly to wait for anything or anybody. *He* was
always ready, and expected others to be, but Daisy is
just the reverse. Such dawdling habits I never saw
in any person. With Zillah to help her dress she is
never ready for breakfast, never ready for dinner,
never ready for church, never ready for anything, and
that, in a household accustomed to order and regularity, does put things back so, and make so much
trouble.

"Don't wait breakfast for me, please," she says,
when she has been called for the third or fourth time,
and if she can get us to sit down without her she
seems to think it all right, and that she can be as long
as she likes.

I wonder that it never occurs to her that to keep
the breakfast table round, as we must, makes the girls
cross and upsets the kitchen generally. I hinted as
much to her once when the table stood till ten o'clock,
and she only opened her great blue eyes wonderingly,
and said mamma had spoiled her she guessed, for it
did not use to matter at home when she was ready,
but she would try and do better. She bade Zillah call
her at *five* the next morning, and Zillah called her,
and then she was a half hour late. Guy doesn't like
that, and he looked daggers on the night of the reception,
when the guests began to arrive before she was
dressed! And she commenced her toilet too, at three
o'clock! But she was wondrously beautiful in her
bridal robes, and took all hearts by storm. She is
perfectly at home in society, and knows just what to
do and say so long as the conversation keeps in the
fashionable round of chit-chat, but when it drifts into
deeper channels she is silent at once, or only answers in
monosyllables. I believe she is a good French scholar,
and she plays and sings tolerably well, and reads the
novels as they come out, but of books and literature,
in general, she is wholly ignorant, and if Guy thought
to find in her any sympathy with his favorite studies
and authors he is terribly mistaken.

And yet, as I write all this, my conscience gives
me sundry pricks as if I were wronging her, for in
spite of her faults I like her ever so much, and like to
watch her flitting through the house and grounds like
the little fairy she is, and I hope the marriage may
turn out well, and that she will improve with age, and
make Guy very happy.




CHAPTER II.—EXTRACTS FROM GUY'S JOURNAL.
========================================


.. class:: right

September 20th, 18—.

Three months married. Three months with
Daisy all to myself, and yet not exactly to
myself either, for of her own accord she
does not often come where I am, unless it is just as I
have shut myself up in my room, thinking to have a
quiet hour with my books. Then she generally appears, and wants me to ride with her, or play croquet
or see which dress is most becoming, and I always
submit and obey her as if I were the child instead of
herself.

She *is* young, and I almost wonder her parents
allowed her to marry. Fan hints that they were mercenary,
but if they were they concealed the fact wonderfully
well, and made me think it a great sacrifice
on their part to give me Daisy. And so it was; such
a lovely little darling, and so beautiful. What a sensation
she created at Saratoga! and still I was glad to
get away, for I did not fancy some things which were
done there. I did not like so many young men around
her, nor her dancing those abominable round dances
which she seemed to enjoy so much. "Square dances
were poky," she said, even after I tried them with her
for the sake of keeping her out of that vile John Britton's
arms. I have an impression that I made a spectacle
of myself, hopping about like a magpie, but
Daisy said, "I did beautifully," though she cried because
I put my foot on her lace flounce and tore it,
and I noticed that after that she always had some
good reason why I should not dance again. "It was
too hard work for me; I was too big and clumsy," she
said, "and would tire easily. Cousin Tom was big
and he never danced."

By the way, I have some little curiosity with regard
to that Cousin Tom who wanted Daisy so badly,
and who, because she refused him, went off to South
America. I trust he will stay there. Not that I am
or could be jealous of Daisy, but it is better for cousins
like Tom to keep away.

Daisy is very happy here, though she is not quite
as enthusiastic over the place as I supposed she would
be, knowing how she lived at home. The McDonalds
are intensely respectable, so she says; but her father's
practice cannot bring him over two thousand a year,
and the small brown house they live in, with only a
grass-plot in the rear and at the side, is not to be compared
with Elmwood, which is a fine old place, every
one admits. It has come out gradually that she
thought the house was brick and had a tower and billiard-room,
and that we kept a great many servants,
and had a fish-pond on the premises, and velvet carpets
on every floor. I would not let Fan know this
for the world, as I want her to like Daisy thoroughly.

And she does like her, though this little pink and
white pet of mine is a new revelation to her, and puzzles
her amazingly. She would have been glad if I
had married Julia Hamilton, of Boston; but those
Boston girls are too strong-minded and positive to suit
me. Julia is nice, it is true, and pretty, and highly
educated, and Fan says she has brains and would make
a splendid wife. As Fan had never seen Daisy she
did not, of course, mean to hint that she had not
brains, but I suspect even now she would be better
pleased if Julia were here, but I should not. Julia is
self-reliant; Daisy is not. Julia has opinions of her
own and asserts them, too; Daisy does not. Julia can
sew and run a machine; Daisy cannot. Julia gets up
in the morning and goes to bed at night; Daisy does
neither. Nobody ever waits for Julia; everybody
waits for Daisy. Julia reads scientific works and
dotes on metaphysics; Daisy does not know the meaning
of the word. In short, Julia is a strong, high-toned,
energetic, independent woman, while Daisy is—a
little innocent, confiding girl, whom I would
rather have without brains than all the Boston women
like Julia with brains!

And yet I sometimes wish she did care for books,
and was more interested in what interests me. I have
tried reading aloud to her an hour every evening, but
she generally goes to sleep or steals up behind me to
look over my shoulder and see how near I am to the
end of the chapter, and when I reach it she says:
"Excuse me, but I have just thought of something I
must tell Zillah about the dress I want to wear to-morrow.
I'll be back in a moment;" and off she goes
and our reading is ended for that time, for I notice
she never returns. The dress is of more importance
than the book, and I find her at ten or eleven trying
to decide whether black or white or blue is most
becoming to her. Poor Daisy! I fear she had no
proper training at home. Indeed, she told me the
other day that from her earliest recollection she had
been taught that the main object of her life was to
marry young and to marry money. Of course she did
not mean anything, but I would rather she had not
said it, even though I know she refused a millionaire
for me who can hardly be called rich as riches are
rated these days. If Dick Trevylian should fail to
meet his payment I should be very poor, and then
what would become of Daisy, to whom the luxuries
which money buys are so necessary?

[Here followed several other entries in the journal,
consisting mostly of rhapsodies on Daisy, and then
came the following:]

----

.. class:: right

December 15th, 18—.

Dick *has* failed to meet his payments, and that too
after having borrowed of me twenty thousand more!
Is he a villain, and did he know all the time that I
was ruining myself? I cannot think so when I remember
the look on his face as he told me about it
and swore to me solemnly that up to the very last he
fully expected relief from England, where he thought
he had a fortune.

"If I live I will pay you sometime," he said; but
that does not help me now. I am a ruined man.
Elmwood must be sold, and I must work like a dog to
earn my daily bread. For myself I would not mind
it much, and Fan, who, woman-like, saw it in the distance
and warned me of it, behaves nobly; but it
falls hard on Daisy.

Poor Daisy! She never said a word when I told
her the exact truth, but she went to bed and cried for
one whole day. I am so glad I settled ten thousand
dollars on her when we were married. No one can
touch that, and I told her so; but she did not say a
word or seem to know what I meant. Talking of
anything serious, or expressing her opinion, was never
in her line, and she has not of her own accord spoken
with me on the subject, and when I try to talk with
her about our future she shudders and cries, and says,
"Please don't! I can't bear it! I want to go home to
mother!"

And so it is settled that while we are arranging
matters she is to visit her mother and perhaps not
return till spring, when I hope to be in a better condition
financially than I am at present.

One thing Daisy said, which hurt me cruelly, and
that was: "If I must be a poor man's wife I might
as well have married Cousin Tom, who wanted me so
badly!" To do her justice, however, she added immediately:
"But I like you the best."

I am glad she said that. It will be something to
remember when she is gone, or rather when I return
without her, as I am going to Indianapolis with her,
and then back to the dreary business of seeing what
I have left and what I can do. I have an offer for
the house, and shall sell it at once; but where my
home will be next, I do not know, neither would I
care so much if it were not for Daisy,—poor little
Daisy!—who thought she had married a rich man.
The only tears I have shed over my lost fortune were
for her. Oh, Daisy, Daisy!




CHAPTER III.—EXTRACTS FROM DAISY'S JOURNAL.
===========================================

.. class:: right

Elmwood, September 20th, 18—.

Daisy McDonald Thornton's journal,—presented
by my husband, Mr. Guy
Thornton, who wishes me to write something
in it every day; and who, when I asked him
what I should write, said: "Your thoughts, and
opinions, and experiences. It will be pleasant for you
sometime to look back upon your early married life
and see what progress you have made since then, and
will help you to recall incidents you would otherwise
forget. A journal fixes things in your mind, and I
know you will enjoy it, especially as no one is to see
it, and you can talk to it freely as to a friend."

That is what Guy said, and I wrote it right down
to copy into the book as a kind of preface or introduction.
I am not much pleased with having to keep
a journal, and maybe I shall coax Zillah to keep it for
me. I don't care to *fix* things in my mind. I don't
like things *fixed*, anyway. I'd rather they would lie
round loose, as they surely would, if I had not Zillah
to pick them up. She is a treasure, and it is almost
worth being married to have a waiting-maid,—and
that reminds me that I may as well begin back at the
time when I was not married, and did not want to be
either, if we had not been so poor, and obliged to
make so many shifts to keep up appearances and
seem richer than we were.

My maiden name was Margaret McDonald, and I
am seventeen next New Year's Day. My father is of
Scotch descent, and a lawyer; and mother was a Barnard,
from New Orleans, and has some very good
blood in her veins. I am an only child, and very
handsome,—so everybody says; and I should know it
if they did not say it, for can't I see myself in the
glass? And still I really do not care so much for my
good looks except as they serve to attain the end for
which father says I was born.

Almost the first thing I can remember is of his
telling me that I must marry young and marry rich,
and I promised him I would, provided I could stay
at home with mother just the same after I was married.
Another thing I remember, which made a lasting
impression, and that is the beating father gave me
for asking before some grand people staying at our
house, "Why we did not always have beefsteak and
hot muffins for breakfast, instead of baked potatoes
and bread and butter?"

I must learn to keep my mouth shut, he said, and
not tell all I knew; and I profited by the lesson, and
that is one reason, I suppose, why I so rarely say
what I think or express an opinion either favorable
or otherwise.

I do not believe I am deceitful, though all my life
I have seen my parents try to seem what they are
not; that is, try to seem like rich people, when sometimes
father's practice brought him only a few hundreds
a year, and there was mother and myself and
Tom to support. Tom is my cousin,—Tom McDonald—who
lived with us and fell in love with me, though
I never tried to make him. But I liked him ever so
much, even if he did use to tease me horridly, and put
horn-bugs in my shoes, and worms on my neck, and
jack-o'lanterns in my room, and tip me off his sled
into the snow; for with all his teasing, he had a
great, kind, unselfish heart, and I shall never forget
that look on his face when I told him I could not be
his wife. I did not like him as he liked me, and I did
not want to be married any way. I could not bear the
thought of being tied up to some man, and if I did
marry it must be to somebody who was rich. That
was in Chicago, and the night before Tom started for
South America, where he was going to make his fortune,
and he wanted me to promise to wait for him,
and said no one would ever love me as well as he did.

I could not promise, because, even if he had all
the gold mines in Peru, I did not care to spend my
days with him,—to see him morning, noon and night,
and all the time. It is a good deal to ask of a
woman, and I told him so, and he cried so hard,—not
loud, but in a pitiful kind of way, which hurt me
cruelly. I hear that sobbing sometimes now in my
sleep, and it's like the moan of the wind round that
house on the prairie where Tom's mother died. Poor
Tom! I gave him a lock of my hair and let him kiss
me twice, and then he went away, and after that old
Judge Burton offered himself and his million to me;
but I could not endure his bald head a week, I should
hate him awfully and I told him no; and when father
seemed sorry and said I missed it, I told him I would
not sell myself for gold alone,—I'd run away first and
go after Tom, who was young and just bearable.
Then Guy Thornton came, and—and—well, he took
me by storm, and I liked him better than any one I
had ever seen, though I would rather have him for my
friend,—my beau, whom I could order around and get
rid of when I pleased, but I married him. Everybody
said he was rich, and father was satisfied and gave his
consent, and bought me a most elaborate trousseau. I
wondered then where the money came from. Now, I
know that *Tom* sent it. He has been very successful
with his mine, and in a letter to father sent me a
check for fifteen hundred dollars. Father would not
tell me that, but mother did, and I felt worse, I think,
than when I heard the sobbing. Poor Tom! I never
wear one of the dresses now without thinking who
paid for it and wrote in his letter, "I am working like
an ox for Daisy." Poor Tom!

----

.. class:: right

October 1st, 18—.

I rather like writing in my journal after all, for
here I can say what I think, and I guess I shall not let
Zillah make the entries. Where did I leave off? Oh,
about poor Tom.

I have had a letter from him. He had just heard
of my marriage, and only said, "God bless you, my
darling little Daisy, and may you be very happy."

I burned the letter up and cried myself into a
headache. I wish people would not love me so much.
I do not deserve it, for I know I am not what they
think me to be. There's Guy, my husband, more to
be pitied than Tom, because, you see, he has got me;
and privately, between you and me, old journal, I am
not worth the getting, and I know it perhaps better
than any one else. I do not think I am really mean
or bad, but there certainly is in my make-up something
different from other women. I like Guy and believe
him to be the best man in the world, and I would
rather he kissed me than Tom, but do not want any
body to kiss me, especially a man, and Guy is so affectionate,
and his great hands are so hot, and muss my
fluted dresses so terribly.

I guess I don't like to be married anyway. If one
only could have the house, and the money, and the nice
things without the husband! That's wicked, of course,
when Guy is so kind and loves me so much. I wish he
didn't, but I would not for the world let him know
how I feel. I did tell him that I was not the wife he
ought to have, but he would not believe me, and father
was anxious, and so I married him, meaning to do the
best I could. It was splendid at Saratoga, only Guy
danced so ridiculously and would not let me waltz
with those young men. As if I cared a straw for
them or any body besides Guy and Tom!

It is very pleasant here at Elmwood, but the house
is not as grand as I supposed, and there are not as
many servants, and the family carriage is awful pokey.
Guy is to give me a pretty little phaeton on my birthday.

I like Miss Frances very much, only she is such a
raging housekeeper, and keeps me all the while on the
alert. I don't believe in these raging housekeepers
who act as if they wanted to make the bed before you
are up, and eat breakfast before it is ready. I don't
like to get up in the morning any way, and I don't
like to hurry, and I am always behind, and keeping
somebody waiting, and that disturbs the people here
very much. Miss Frances seems really cross sometimes,
and even Guy looks sober and disturbed when
he has waited for me half an hour or more. I guess I
must try and do better, for both Guy and Miss Frances
are as kind as they can be, but then I am not one
bit like them, and have never been accustomed to anything like order and regularity. At home things came
round any time, and I came with them, and that suited
me better than being married, only now I have a kind
of settled feeling, and am Mrs. Guy Thornton, and
Guy is good looking, and highly esteemed, and very
learned, and I can see that the young ladies in the
neighborhood envy me for being his wife. I wonder
who is that Julia Hamilton, Miss Frances talks about
so much, and why Guy did not marry her instead of
me. She is very learned, and gets up in the morning
and flies round and is always ready, and reads scientific
articles in the *Westminster Review*, and teaches in
Sunday-school, and thinks it wicked to waltz, and likes
to discuss all the mixed-up horrid questions of the day,—religion
and politics and science and everything. I
asked Guy once why he did not marry her instead of a
little goose like me, and he said he liked the little
goose the best, and then kissed me, and crumpled my
white dress all up. Poor Guy! I wish I did love him
as well as he does me, but it's not in me to love any
body very much.

----

.. class:: right

December 20th, 18—.

A horrible thing has happened, and I have married
a poor man after all! Guy signed for somebody and
had to pay, and Elmwood must be sold, and we are to
move into a stuffy little house, without Zillah, and
with but one girl, and I shall have to take care of my
own room as I did at home, and make my own bed
and pick up my things and shall never be ready for
dinner. It is too dreadful to think about, and I was
sick for a week after Guy told me of it. I might as
well have married Tom, only I like Guy the best. He
looks so sorry and sad that I sometimes forget myself
to pity him. I am going home to mother for a long,
long time,—all winter may be,—and I shall enjoy it so
much. Guy says I have ten thousand dollars of my
own, and the interest on that will buy my dresses, I
guess, and get something for Miss Frances, too. She
is a noble woman, and tries to bear up so bravely.
She says they will keep the furniture of my blue room
for me, if I want it; and I do, and I mean to have
Guy send it to Indianapolis, if he will. Oh, mother, I
am so glad I am coming back, where I can do exactly
as I like,—eat my breakfast on the washstand if I
choose, and sit up all night long. I almost wish,—no,
I don't, either. I like Guy ever so much. It's being
tied up that I don't like.




CHAPTER IV.—AUTHOR'S STORY.
===========================


Guy Thornton was not a fool, and Daisy
was not a fool, though they have thus far
appeared to great disadvantage. Beth had
made a mistake; Guy in marrying a child whose mind
was unformed; and Daisy in marrying at all, when
her whole nature was in revolt against matrimony.
But the mistake was made, and Guy had failed and
Daisy was going home, and the New Year's morning
when she was to have received Guy's gift of the
phaeton and ponies, found her at the little cottage in
Indianapolis, where she at once resumed all the old indolent
habits of her girlhood, and was happier than
she had been since leaving home as a bride.

On Mr. McDonald, the news of his son-in-law's
failure fell like a thunderbolt and affected him more
than it did Daisy. Shrewd, ambitious and scheming,
he had for years planned for his daughter a moneyed
marriage, and now she was returned upon his hands
for an indefinite time, with her naturally luxurious
tastes intensified by recent indulgence, and her husband
a ruined man. It was not a pleasant picture to
contemplate, and Mr. McDonald's face was cloudy and
thoughtful for many days, until a letter from Tom
turned his thoughts into a new channel and sent him
with fresh avidity to certain points of law with which
he had of late years been familiar. If there was one
part of his profession in which he excelled more than
another it was in the divorce cases which had made
Indiana so notorious. Squire McDonald, as he was
called, was well known to that class of people who,
utterly ignoring God's command, seek to free themselves
from the bonds which once were so pleasant to
wear, and as he sat alone in his office with Tom's letter
in his hand, and read how rapidly that young man was
getting rich, there came into his mind a plan, the very
thought of which would have made Guy Thornton
shudder with horror and disgust.

Daisy had not been altogether satisfied with her
brief married life, and it would be very easy to make
her more dissatisfied, especially as the home to which
she would return must necessarily be very different
from Elmwood. Tom was destined to be a millionaire.
There was no doubt of that, and he could be
moulded and managed as Mr. McDonald had never
been able to mould or manage Guy. But everything
pertaining to Tom must be kept carefully out of
sight, for the man knew his daughter would never
lend herself to such a diabolical scheme as that which
he was revolving, and which he at once put in progress,
managing so adroitly that before Daisy was at
all aware of what she was doing, she found herself the
heroine of a divorce suit, founded really upon nothing
but a general dissatisfaction with married life, and a
wish to be free from it. Something there was about
incompatibility of temperament and uncongeniality
and all that kind of thing which wicked men and
women parade before the world when weary of the tie
which God has said shall not be torn asunder.

It is not our intention to follow the suit through
any of its details, and we shall only say that it progressed
rapidly, while poor unsuspicious Guy was
working hard to retrieve in some way his lost fortune,
and to fit up a pleasant home for the childish wife
who was drifting away from him. He had missed
her so much at first, even while he felt it a relief to
have her gone when his business matters needed all
his time and thought. It was some comfort to write
to her, but not much to receive her letters, for Daisy
did not excel in epistolary composition, and after a
few weeks her letters were short and far apart, and, as
Guy thought, constrained and studied in their tone,
and when, after she had been absent from him for
three months or more his longing to see her was so
great that he decided upon a visit of a few days to the
West, and apprized her of his intention, asking if she
would be glad to see him, he received in reply a telegram
from Mr. McDonald telling him to defer his
journey as Daisy was visiting some friends and would
be absent for an indefinite length of time. There was
but one more letter from her, and that was dated at
Vincennes, and merely said that she was well, and
Guy must not feel anxious about her or take the
trouble to come to see her, as she knew how valuable
his time must be, and would far rather he should
devote himself to his business than bother about her.
The letter was signed, "Hastily, Daisy," and Guy
read it over many times with a pang in his heart he
could not define.

But he had no suspicion of the terrible blow in
store for him, and went on planning for her comfort
just the same; and when at last Elmwood was sold
and he could no longer stay there, he hired a more
expensive house than he could afford, because he
thought Daisy would like it better, and then, with his
sister Frances, set himself to the pleasant task of fitting
it up for Daisy. There was a blue room with a
bay window just as there had been in Elmwood, only
it was not so pretentious and large. But it was very
pleasant, and had a door opening out upon what Guy
meant should be a flower garden in the summer, and
though he missed his little wife sadly, and longed so
much at times for a sight of her beautiful face and
the sound of her sweet voice, he put all thought of
himself aside and said he would not bring her back
until the May flowers were in blossom and the young
grass bright and green by the blue room door.

"She will have a better impression of her new
home then," he said to his sister, "and I want her to
be happy here and not feel the change too keenly."

Julia Hamilton chanced to be in town staying at
the Towers, and as she was very intimate with Miss
Thornton the two were a great deal together, and it
thus came about that Julia was often at the brown
cottage and helped to settle the blue room for Daisy.

"If it were only you who was to occupy it,"
Frances said to her one morning when they had been
reading together for an hour or more in the room
they both thought so pretty. "I like Daisy, but
somehow she seems so far from me. Why, there's
not a sentiment in common between us."

Then, as if sorry for having said so much, she
spoke of Daisy's marvelous beauty and winning ways,
and hoped Julia would know and love her ere long,
and possibly do her good.

It so happened that Guy was sometimes present at
these readings and enjoyed them so much that there
insensibly crept into his heart a wish that Daisy was
more like the Boston girl whom he had mentally
termed strong-minded and stiff.

"And in time, perhaps, she maybe," he thought.
"I mean to have Julia here a great deal next summer,
and with two such women for companions as Julia
and Fan, Daisy cannot help but improve."

And so at last when the house was settled and the
early spring flowers were in bloom Guy started westward
for his wife. He had not seen her now for
months, and it was more than two weeks since he had
heard from her, and his heart beat high with joyful
anticipation as he thought just how she would look
when she came to him, shyly and coyly, as she always
did, with that droop in her eye-lids and that pink
flush in her cheeks. He would chide her a little at
first, he said, for having been so poor a correspondent,
especially of late, and after that he would love her so
much, and shield her so tenderly from every want or
care that she should never feel the difference in his
fortune.

Poor Guy,—he little dreamed what was in store
for him just inside the door where he stood ringing
one morning in May, and which, when at last it was
opened, shut in a very different man from the one
who who went through it three hours later, benumbed
and half-crazed with bewilderment and surprise.




CHAPTER V.—THE DIVORCE.
=======================


He had expected to meet Daisy in the hall,
but she was not in sight, and her mother,
who appeared in response to the card he
sent up, seemed confused and unnatural to such a
degree that Guy asked in some alarm if anything had
happened, and where Daisy was.

Nothing had happened,—that is,—well, nothing
was the matter with Daisy, Mrs. McDonald said, only
she was nervous and not feeling quite well that morning,
and thought she better not come down. They
were not expecting him so soon, she continued, and
she regretted exceedingly that her husband was not
there, but she had sent for him, and hoped he would
come immediately. Had Mr. Thornton been to breakfast?

He had been to breakfast, and he did not understand
at all what she meant; if Daisy could not come
to him, he must go to her, he said, and he started for
the door, when Mrs. McDonald sprang forward, and
laying her hand on his arm, held him back, saying:

"Wait, Mr. Thornton: wait till husband comes—to
tell you——"

"Tell me what!" Guy demanded, feeling sure now
that something had befallen Daisy.

"Tell you—that—that,—Daisy is,—that he has,—that,—oh,
believe me, it was not my wish at all, and I
don't know now why it was done," Mrs. McDonald
said, still trying to detain Guy and keep him in the
room.

But her efforts were vain, for shaking off her
grasp, Guy opened the hall door, and with a cry of
joy caught Daisy herself in his arms.

In a state of fearful excitement and very curious
to know what was passing between her mother and
Guy, she had stolen down stairs to listen, and had
reached the door just as Guy opened it so suddenly.

"Daisy, darling, I feared you were sick," he cried,
nearly smothering her with his caresses.

But Daisy writhed herself away from him, and
putting up her hands to keep him off, cried out:

"Oh, Guy, Guy, you can't,—you mustn't. You
must never kiss me again or love me any more, because
I am,—I am not,——Oh, Guy, I wish you had
never seen me; I am so sorry, too. I did like you.
I,—I,—Guy,—Guy,—I am not your wife any more I
Father has got a divorce!"

She whispered the last words, and then, affrighted
at the expression of Guy's face, fled half way up the
stairs, where she stood looking down upon him, while,
with a face as white as ashes, he, too, stood gazing at
her and trying to frame the words which should ask
her what she meant. He did not believe her literally;
the idea was too preposterous, but he felt that some
thing horrible had come between him and Daisy,—that
in some way she was as much lost to him as if
he had found her coffined for the grave, and the suddenness
of the blow took from him for a moment his
powers of speech, and he still stood looking at her
when the street door opened, and a new actor appeared
upon the scene in the person of Mr. McDonald,
who had hastened home in obedience to the message
from his wife.

It was a principle of Mr. McDonald never to lose
his presence of mind or his temper, or the smooth, low
tone of voice he had cultivated years ago and practiced
with so good effect.

And now, though he understood the state of matters
at once and knew that Guy had heard the worst,
he did not seem ruffled in the slightest degree, and
his voice was just as kind and sweet as ever as he
bade Guy good-morning, and advanced to take his
hand. But Guy would not take it. He had always
disliked and distrusted Mr. McDonald, and he felt
intuitively that whatever harm had befallen him had
come through the oily-tongued man who stood smilingly
before him. With a gesture of disgust he
turned away from the offered hand, and in a voice
husky with suppressed excitement, asked:

"What does all this mean, that when, after a
separation of months, I come for my wife, I am told
that she is not my wife,—that there has been a—a
divorce?"

Guy had brought himself to name the horrid thing,
and the very sound of the word served to make it
more real and clear to his mind, and there were great
drops of sweat, upon his forehead and about his mouth
as he asked what it meant.

"Oh, Guy, don't feel so badly. Tell him, father,
I did not do it," Daisy cried, as she stood leaning
over the stair-rail looking down at the wretched man.

"Daisy, go to your room. You should not have
seen him at all," Mr. McDonald said, with more sternness
of manner than was usual for him.

Then, turning to Guy, he continued:

"Come in here, Mr. Thornton, where we can be
alone while I explain to you what seems so mysterious
now."

They went together into the little parlor, and for
half an hour or more the sound of their voices was
distinctly heard as Mr. McDonald tried to explain
what there really was no explanation or excuse for.
Daisy was not contented at Elmwood, and though she
complained of nothing she was not happy as a married
woman, and was glad to be free again. That
was all, and Guy understood at last that Daisy was
his no longer; that the law which was a disgrace to
the State in which it existed had divorced him from
his wife without his knowledge or consent, and for no
other reason than incompatibility of temperament,
and a desire on Daisy's part to be free from the marriage
tie. Not a word had been said of Guy's
altered fortunes, but he felt that his comparative poverty
was really the cause of this great wrong, and for
a few moments resentment and indignation prevailed
over every other feeling; then, when he remembered
the little blue-eyed, innocent-faced girl whom he had
loved so much and thought so good and true, he laid
his head upon the sofa-arm and groaned bitterly,
while the man who had ruined him sat coolly by,
citing to him many similar cases where divorces had
been procured without the knowledge of the absent
party. It was a common,—a very common thing, he
said, and reflected no disgrace where there was no
criminal charge. Daisy was too young and childish
anyway, and ought not to have been married for
several years, and it was really quite as much a favor
to Guy as a wrong. He was free again,—free to marry
if he liked,—he had taken care to see to that, so——

"Stop!" Guy thundered out, rousing himself from
his crouching attitude upon the sofa. "There is a
point beyond which you shall not go. Be satisfied
with taking Daisy from me, and do not insult me
with talk of a second marriage. Had I found Daisy
dead it would have hurt me less than this fearful
wrong you have done. I say *you*, for I charge it all
to *you*. Daisy could have had no part in it, and I ask
to see her and hear from her own lips that she accepts
the position in which you and your diabolical laws
have placed her before I am willing to give her up.
Call her, will you?"

"No, Mr. Thornton," Mr. McDonald replied.
"To see Daisy would be useless, and only excite you
more than you are excited now. You cannot see
her."

"Yes he will, father. If Guy wants to see me, he
shall."

It was Daisy herself who spoke, and who a second
time had been acting the part of listener. Going up
to Guy she knelt down beside him, and laying her
arms across his lap, said to him.

"What is it, Guy what is it you wish to say to
me?"

The sight of her before him in all her girlish
beauty, with that soft, sweet expression on the face
raised so timidly to his, unmanned Guy entirely, and
clasping her in his arms he wept passionately for a
moment, while he tried to say:

"Oh, Daisy, my darling, tell me it is a horrid
dream,—tell me you are still my wife, and go with me
to the home I have tried to make so pleasant for your
sake. It is not like Elmwood, but I will sometime
have one handsomer even than that, and I'll work so
hard for you. Oh, Daisy, tell me you are sorry for
the part you had in this fearful business, if indeed you
had a part, and I'll take you back so gladly. Will
you, Daisy; will you be my wife once more? I shall
never ask you again. This is your last chance with
me. Reflect before you throw it away."

Guy's mood was changing a little, because of
something he saw in Daisy's face,—a drawing back
from him when he spoke of marriage.

"Daisy must not go back with you; I shall not
suffer that," Mr. McDonald said, while Daisy, still
keeping her arms around Guy's neck, where she had
put them when he drew her to him, replied:

"Oh, Guy! I can't go with you; but I shall like
you always, and I'm sorry for you. I never wanted
to be married; but if I must, I'd better have married
*Tom*, or that old Chicago man; they would not have
felt so badly, and I'd rather hurt them than you."

The utter childishness of the remark roused Guy,
and, with a gesture of impatience, he put her from him,
and rising to his feet, said angrily:

"This, then, is your decision, and I accept it; but,
Daisy, if you have in you a spark of true womanhood,
you will some time be sorry for this day's work;
while *you*!" and he turned fiercely upon Mr. McDonald,—"words
cannot express the contempt I feel
for you; and know, too, that I understand you fully,
and am certain that were I the rich man I was when
you gave your daughter to me, you would not have
taken her away. But I will waste no more words upon
you. You are a *villain*! and Daisy is"——His white
lips quivered a little as he hesitated a moment, and
then added: "Daisy *was* my wife."

Then, without another word, he left the house, and
never turned to see the white, frightened face which
looked after him so wistfully until a turn in the street
hid him from view.




CHAPTER VI.—EXTRACTS FROM DIARIES.
==================================


.. class:: center

*Extract 1st.—Mr. McDonald's.*

.. class:: right

May ——.

Well, that matter is over, and I can't say
I am sorry, for the expression in that
Thornton's eye I do not care to meet a
second time. There was mischief in it, and it made
one think of six-shooters and cold lead. I never quite
indorsed the man,—first, because he was not as rich as
I would like Daisy's husband to be; and second, because
even had he been a millionaire it would have
done *me* no good. That he did not marry Daisy's
family, he made me fully understand; and for any
good his money did me, I was as poor after the marriage
as before. Then he must needs lose all he had
in that foolish way; and when I found that Daisy
was not exceedingly in love with married life, it was
natural that, as her father, I should take advantage of
the laws of the State in which I live, especially as *Tom*
is growing rich so fast. On the whole, I have done a
good thing. Daisy is free, with ten thousand dollars
which Thornton settled on her; for, of course, I shall
prevent her giving that back as she is determined to
do, saying it is not hers, and she will not keep it. It
is hers and she shall keep it, and Tom will be a millionaire
if that gold mine proves as great a success as
it seems likely to do; and I can manage Tom, only I
am sorry for Thornton who evidently was in love with
Daisy; and, as I said before, I've done a nice thing
after all.

----

.. class:: center

*Extract 2nd.—Miss Thornton's Diary.*

.. class:: right

June 30th, 18—.


To-day, for the first time, we have hopes that my
brother will live; but, oh! how near he has been to
the gates of death since that night when he came back
to us from the West, with a fearful look on his face,
and a cruel wound in his heart. I say us, for Julia
Hamilton has been with me all through the dreadful
days and nights when I watched to see Guy's life go
out and know I was left alone. She was with me when
I was getting ready for Daisy, and waiting for Guy to
bring her home,—not to Elmwood,—that dear old place
is sold, and strangers walk the rooms I love so well,—but
here to the brown cottage on the hill, which, if I
had never had Elmwood, would seem so pleasant to
me.

And it is pleasant here, especially in Daisy's room,
which we shall never use, for the door is shut and
bolted, and it seems each time I pass it as if a dead
body were lying hidden there. Had Guy died I would
have laid him there and sent for that false creature to
come and see her work. I promised her so much, but
not from any love, for my heart was full of bitterness
that night when I turned her from the door out into
the rain. I shall never tell Guy that, lest he should
soften toward her, and I would not have her here
again for all the world contains. And yet I did like
her, and was looking forward to her return with a
good deal of pleasure. Julia had spoken many a kind
word for her, had pleaded her extreme youth as an excuse
for her faults, and had led me to hope for better
things when time had matured her somewhat and she
had become accustomed to our new mode of life.

And so I waited for her and Guy, and wondered I
did not hear from them, and felt so glad and happy
when I received the telegram, "Shall be home to-night."
It was a bright day in May, but the evening
set in cool, with a feeling of rain in the air, and I had
a fire kindled in the parlor and in Daisy's room, for I
remembered how she used to crouch on the rug before
the grate and watch the blaze floating up the chimney
with all the eagerness of a child. Then, although it
hurt me sorely, I went to Simpson, who bought our
carriage, and asked that it might be sent to the station
so that Daisy should not feel the difference at once.
And Jerry, our old coachman, went with it, and waited
there just as Julia and I waited at home, for Julia had
promised to stay a few days on purpose to see Daisy.

The train was late that night, an hour behind time,
and the spring rain was falling outside and the gas was
lighted within when I heard the sound of wheels stopping
at the door and went to meet my brother. But
only my brother. There was no Daisy with him. He
came in alone, with such an awful look on his white
face as made me cry out with alarm.

"What is it, Guy, and where is Daisy?" I asked,
as he staggered against the bannister, where he
leaned heavily.

He did not answer my question, but said, "Take
me to my room," in a voice I would never have
known for Guy's. I took him to his room and made
him lie down, and brought him a glass of wine, and
then, when he was strong enough to tell it, listened
to the shameful story, and felt that henceforth and
forever I must and would hate the woman who had
wounded my Guy so cruelly.

And still there is some good in her,—some sense of
right and justice, as was shown by what she did when
Guy was at the worst of the terrible fever which followed
his coming home. I watched him constantly.
I would not even let Julia Hamilton share my vigils,
and one night when I was worn out with fatigue and
anxiety I fell asleep upon the lounge, where I threw
myself for a moment. How long I slept I never
knew, but it must have been an hour or more, for the
last thing I remember was hearing the whistle of the
Western train and the distant sound of thunder as if
a storm were coming, and when I awoke the rain was
falling heavily and the clock was striking twelve,
which was an hour after the train was due. It was
very quiet in the room, and darker than usual, for
some one had shaded the lamp from my eyes as well
as Guy's, so that at first I did not see distinctly, but I
had an impression that there was a figure sitting by
Guy near the bed. Julia most likely, I thought, and
I called her by name, feeling my blood curdle in my
veins and my heart stand still with something like
fear when a voice I knew so well and never expected
to hear again, answered softly:

"It is not Julia. *It's I.*"

There was no faltering in her voice, no sound of
apology. She spoke like one who had a right to be
there, and this it was which so enraged me and made
me lose my self-command. Starting to my feet, I
confronted her as she sat in my chair, by Guy's bedside,
with those queer blue eyes of hers fixed so
questioningly upon me as if she wondered at my
impertinence.

"*Miss McDonald*," I said, laying great stress on
the name, "why are you here, and how did you dare
come?"

"I *was* almost afraid, it was so dark when I left
the train, and it kept thundering so," she replied, mistaking
my meaning altogether, "but there was no
conveyance at the station and so I came on alone. I
never knew Guy was sick. Why did you not write
and tell me? Is he very bad?"

Her perfect composure and utter ignoring of the
past provoked me beyond endurance, and without
stopping to think what I was doing, I seized her arm,
and drawing her into an adjoining room, said, in a
suppressed whisper of rage:

"Very bad,—I should think so. We have feared
and still fear he will die, and it's all your work, the
result of your wickedness, and yet you presume to
come here into his very room,—you who are no wife
of his, and no woman either, to do what you have
done."

What more I said I do not remember. I only
know Daisy put her hands to her head in a scared,
helpless way, and said:

"I do not quite understand it all, or what you
wish me to do."

"Do?" I replied. "I want you to leave this
house immediately,—\ *now*, before Guy can possibly be
harmed by your presence. Go back to the depot and
take the next train home. It is due in an hour. You
have time to reach it."

"But it is so dark, and it rains and thunders so,"
she said, with a shudder, as a heavy peal shook the
house and the rain beat against the windows.

I think I must have been crazy with mad excitement,
and her answer made me worse.

"You were not afraid to come here," I said.
"You can go from here as well. Thunder will not
hurt such as you."

Even then she did not move, but crouched in a
corner of the room farthest from me, reminding me of
my kitten when I try to drive it from a place where
it has been permitted to play. As that will not understand
my *'scats* and gestures so she did not seem
to comprehend my meaning. But I made her at last,
and with a very white face and a strange look in her
great staring blue eyes, she said:

"Fanny," (she always called me Miss Frances before).
"Fanny, do you really mean me to go back in
the dark, and the rain and the thunder? Then I will,
but I must tell you first what I came for, and you will
tell Guy. He gave me ten thousand dollars when we
first were married; settled it on me, they called it,
and father was one of the trustees, and kept the paper
for me till I was of age. So much I understand, but
not why I can't give it back to Guy, for father says I
can't. I never dreamed it was mine after the—the—the
divorce."

She spoke the word softly and hesitatingly, while
a faint flush showed on her otherwise white face.

"If I am not Guy's wife, as they say, then I have
no right to his money, and I told father so, and said
I'd give it back, and he said I couldn't, and I said I
could and would, and I wrote to Guy about it, and
told him I was not so mean, and father kept the letter,
and I did not know what I should do next till I was
invited to visit Aunt Merriman in Detroit. Then I
took the paper,—the *settlement*, you know, from the
box where father kept it, and put it in my pocket;
here it is; see—" and she drew out a document and
held it toward me while she continued: "I started
for Detroit under the care of a friend who stopped a
few miles the other side, so you see I was free to come
here if I liked, and I did so, for I wanted to see Guy
and give him the paper, and tell him I'd never take a
cent of his money. I am sorry he is sick. I did not
think he'd care so much, and I don't know what to do
with the paper unless I tear it up. I believe I'd better;
then surely it will be out of the way."

And before I could speak or think she tore the
document in two, and then across again, and scattered
the four pieces on the floor.

"Tell Guy, please," she continued, "what I have
done, and that I never meant to take it, after—after—\ *that*,—you
know,—and that I did not care for money
only as father taught me I must have it, and that I am
sorry he ever saw me, and I never really wanted to be
married and can't be his wife again till I do."

She spoke as if Guy would take her back of course
if she only signified her wish to come, and this kept
me angry, though I was beginning to soften a little
with this unexpected phase of her character, and I
might have suffered her to stay till morning if she had
signified a wish to do so, but she did not.

"I suppose I must go now if I catch the train,"
she said, moving toward the door. "Good-bye,
Fanny. I am sorry I ever troubled you."

She held her little white ungloved hand toward me
and then I came to myself, and hearing the wind and
rain, and remembering the lonely road to the station,
I said to her:

"Stay, Daisy, I cannot let you go alone. Miss
Hamilton will watch with Guy while I go with
you."

"And who will come back with you? It will be
just as dark and rainy then," she said; but she made
no objection to my plan, and in less than five minutes
Julia, who always slept in her dressing-gown so as to
be ready for any emergency, was sitting by Guy, and
I was out in the dark night with Daisy and our watch-dog
Leo, who, at sight of his old playmate, had leaped
upon her and nearly knocked her down in his joy.

"Leo is glad to see me," Daisy said, patting the
dumb creature's head, and in her voice there was a
rebuking tone, which I resented silently.

I was not glad to see her, and I could not act a
part, but I wrapped my waterproof around her and
adjusted the hood over her hair, and thought how
beautiful she was, even in that disfiguring garb, and
then we went on our way, the young creature clinging
close to me as peal after peal of thunder rolled over
our heads, and gleams of lightning lit up the inky sky.
She did not speak to me, nor I to her, till the red light
on the track was in sight, and we knew the train was
coming. Then she asked timidly: "Do you think
Guy will die?"

"Heaven only knows," I said, checking a strong
impulse to add: "If he does, you will have the satisfaction
of knowing that you killed him."

I am glad now that I did not say it. And I was
glad then, when Daisy, alarmed perhaps by something
in the tone of my voice, repeated her question:

"But do *you* think he will die? If I thought he
would I should wish to die too. I like him, Miss
Frances, better than any one I ever saw; like him
now as well as I ever did, but I do not want to be his
wife, nor anybody's wife, and that is just the truth.
I am sorry he ever saw me and loved me so well.
Tell him that, Fanny."

It was Fanny again, and she grasped my hand
nervously, for the train was upon us.

"Promise me solemnly that if you think he is
surely going to die you will let me know in time to
see him once more. Promise,—quick,—and kiss me as
a pledge."

The train had stopped. There was not a moment
to lose, and I promised, and kissed the red lips in the
darkness, and felt a remorseful pang when I saw the
little figure go alone into the car which bore her
swiftly away, while I turned my steps homeward with
only Leo for my companion.

I had to tell Julia about it, and I gathered up the
four scraps of paper from the floor where Daisy had
thrown them, and joining them together saw they
really were the marriage settlement, and kept them
for Guy, should he ever be able to hear about it and
know what it meant. There was a telegram for me,
the next evening, dated at Detroit, and bearing simply
the words, "Arrived safely," and that was all I heard
of Daisy. No one in town knew of her having been
here but Julia and myself, and it was better that they
should not, for Guy's life hung on a thread, and for
many days and nights I trembled lest that promise,
sealed by a kiss, would have to be redeemed.

That was three weeks ago, and Guy is better now
and knows us all, and to-day, for the first time, I have
a strong hope that I am not to be left alone, and I
thank Heaven for that hope, and feel as if I were at
peace with all the world, even with Daisy herself,
from whom I have heard nothing since that brief
telegram.

----

.. class:: right

August 1st, ——.

The shadow of death has passed from our house,
and I can almost say the shadow of sickness too, for
though Guy is still weak as a child and thin as a
ghost, he is decidedly on the gain, and to-day I drove
him out for the third time, and hoped from something
he said that he was beginning to feel some interest in
the life so kindly given back to him. Still he will
never be just the same. The blow stunned him too
completely for him to recover quite his old happy
manner, and there is a look of age in his face which
pains me to see. He knows Daisy has been here, and
why. I had to tell him all about it, and sooner too
than I meant to, for almost his first coherent question
to me after his reason came back was:

"Where is Daisy? I am sure I heard her voice.
It could not have been a dream. Is she here, or has
she been here? Tell me the truth, Fanny."

So I told him, and showed him the bits of paper,
and held his head on my bosom, while he cried like a
child. How he loves her still, and how glad he was
to know that she was not as mercenary as it would at
first seem. Not that her tearing up that paper will
make any difference about the money. She cannot
give it to him, he says, until she is of age, neither
does he wish it at all, and he would not take it from
her; but he is glad to see her disposition in the matter;
glad to have me think better of her than I did,
and I am certain that he is expecting to hear from her
every day, and is disappointed that he does not. He
did not reproach me as I thought he would when I
told him about turning her out in the rain; he only
said:

"Poor Daisy, did she get very wet? She is so
delicate, you know. I hope it did not make her
sick."

Oh, the love a man will feel for a woman, let her
be ever so unworthy. I cannot comprehend it. And
why should I? an old maid like me, who never loved
any one but Guy.

----

.. class:: right

August 30th, ——.

In a roundabout way we have heard that Mr. McDonald
is going away with his wife and daughter.
When the facts of the divorce were known, they
brought him into such disgrace with the citizens of
Indianapolis, who were perfectly indignant, and showed
that they were in every possible way, that he thought
best to leave for a time till the storm was over, and so
they will go to South America, where there is a cousin
Tom, who is growing rich very fast. I cannot help
certain thoughts coming into my mind, any more than
I can help being glad that Daisy is going out of the
country. Guy never mentions her now, and is getting
to look and act quite like himself. If only he *could*
forget her, we might be very happy again, as Heaven
grant we may.




CHAPTER VII.—FIVE YEARS LATER.
==============================


"Married, this morning, at St. Paul's
church, by the Rev. Dr. ——, assisted
by the Rector, Guy Thornton, Esq., of
Cuylerville, to Miss Julia Hamilton, of this city."

Such was the notice which appeared in a daily
Boston paper one lovely morning in September five
years after the last entry in Miss Thornton's journal.
Guy had reached the point at last, when he could put
Daisy from his heart and take another in her place.
He had never seen her, or heard directly from her
since the night she brought him the marriage settlement
and tore it in pieces, thinking thus to give him
the money beyond a doubt. That this did not change
the matter one whit he knew, for she could not give
him the ten thousand settled upon her until she was
of age. She *was* of age now, and had been for a
year or more, and to say the truth he had expected to
hear from her when she was twenty-one. To himself
he had reasoned on this wise: "Her father told her
that the tearing up that paper made no difference, that
she was powerless of herself to act until she was of
age, so she will wait quietly till then before making
another effort." And Guy thought how he would not
take a penny from her, but would insist upon her keeping
it. Still he should respect her all the more for
her sense of justice and generosity, he thought, and
when her twenty-first birthday came and passed, and
week after week went by, and brought no sign from
Daisy, there was a pang in his heart and a look of disappointment
on his face which did not pass away until
October hung her gorgeous colors upon the hills of
Cuylerville, and Julia Hamilton came to the Brown
Cottage to spend a few weeks with his sister.

From an independent, self-reliant, energetic girl of
twenty-two, Julia had ripened into a noble and dignified
woman of twenty-seven, with a repose of manner
which seemed to rest and quiet one, and which
told insensibly on Guy, until at last he found himself
dreading to have her go, and wishing to keep her with
him always. The visit was lengthened into a month;
and when in November he went with her to Boston,
he had asked her to take Daisy's place, and be his
second wife. Very freely they talked of the little
golden-haired girl, and Julia told him what she had
heard through a mutual acquaintance who had been
on the same vessel with the McDonalds when they
returned from South America. Cousin Tom was with
them, a rich man then, and a richer now, for his gold
mine and his railroad had made him almost a millionaire,
and it was currently reported and believed that
Mr. McDonald meant him to marry his daughter.
They were abroad now, the McDonalds and Tom, and
Daisy, it was said, was even more beautiful than in
her early girlhood, and that to her natural loveliness
was added great cultivation and refinement of manner.
She had had the best of teachers while in South
America, and was now continuing her studies abroad
with a view to further improvement. All this Julia
Hamilton told Guy, and then bade him think again
before deciding to join his life with hers.

And Guy did think again, and his thoughts went
across the sea after the beautiful Daisy, and he tried
to picture to himself what she must be now that education
and culture had set their seal upon her. But
always in the picture there was a dark background,
where cousin Tom stood sentinel with his bags of
gold, and so, with a half unconscious sigh for what
"might have been," Guy dug still deeper the grave
where, years before, he had buried his love for Daisy,
and to make the burial sure this time, so that there
should be no future resurrection, he put over the grave
a head-stone, on which was written a new hope and a
new love, both of which centered in Julia Hamilton.

And so they were engaged, and after that there was
no wavering on his part,—no looking back to a past,
which seemed like a happy dream, from which there
had been a horrible awaking.

He loved Julia at first quietly and sensibly, and
loved her more and more as the winter and spring
went by, and brought the day when he stood again at
the altar, and for the second time took upon him the
marriage vow. It was a very quiet wedding, with
only a few friends present, and Miss Frances was the
bridesmaid, in a gown of silver gray; but Julia's face
was bright with the certainty of a happiness long
desired; and if in Guy's heart there lingered the odor
of other bridal flowers, withered now and dead, and
the memory of other marriage bells than those which
sent their music on the air that September morning,
and if a pair of sunny blue eyes seemed looking into
his, he made no sign, and his face wore an expression
of perfect content as he took his second bride for
better or worse, just as he once had taken little Daisy.
In Daisy's case it had proved all for the worse, but
now there was a suitableness in the union which boded
future happiness, and many a hearty wish for good
was sent after the newly-married pair, whose destination
was New York.

It was nearly dark when they reached the hotel,
and quite dark before dinner was over. Then Julia
suddenly remembered that an old friend of hers was
boarding in the house, and suggested going to her
room.

"I'd send my card," she said, blushingly, "only
she would not know me by the new name, so if you do
not mind my leaving you a moment, I'll go and find
her myself."

Guy did not mind, and Julia went out and left him
alone. Scarcely was she gone when he called to mind
a letter which had been forwarded to him from Cuylerville,
and which he had found awaiting him on his
return from, the church that morning. Not thinking
it of much consequence, he had thrust it in his pocket
and in the excitement forgotten it till now. He had
dressed for dinner and worn his wedding-coat, and he
took the letter out and looked at it a moment, and
wondered whom it was from, as people often wait
and wonder, when breaking the seal would settle the
matter so soon. It was post-marked in New York, and,
felt heavy in his hand, and he opened it at last, and
found that the outer envelope inclosed another one, on
which his name and address were written in a handwriting
once so familiar to him, and the sight of which
made him start and breathe heavily for a moment as
if the air had suddenly grown thick and burdensome.

It was Daisy's handwriting, which he had never
thought to see again; for after his engagement with
Julia he had burned every vestige of a correspondence
it was sorrow now to remember. One by one, and
with a steady hand, he had dropped Daisy's letters
into the fire and watched them turning into ashes, and
thought how like his love for her they were when
nothing remained of them but the thin gray tissue his
breath could blow away. The four scraps of the marriage
settlement which Daisy had brought him on that
night of storm he kept, because they seemed to embody
something good and noble in the girl; but the
letters she had written him were gone past recall, and
he had thought himself cut loose from her forever,—when,
lo! there had come to him an awakening to the
bitterness of the past in a letter from the once-loved
wife, whose delicate handwriting made him grow faint
and sick for a moment, as he held the letter in his
hand and read:

  |     ":small-caps:`Guy Thornton, Esq.`,
  |               "Brown Cottage,
  | "Politeness of Mr. Wilkes.      Cuylerville, Mass."

Why had she written, and what had she to say to
him? he wondered, and for a moment he felt tempted
to tear the letter up and never know what it contained.

Better, perhaps, had he done so,—better for him,
and better for the fond new wife whose happiness was
so perfect, and whose trust in his love was so strong.

But he did not tear it up. He opened it, and
another chapter will tell us what he read.




CHAPTER VIII.—DAISY'S LETTER.
=============================


It was dated at Rouen, France, and it ran as
follows:

":small-caps:`Dear, Dear Guy`:—I am all alone here in Rouen, with no one
near me who speaks English, or knows a thing of Daisy Thornton, as she
was, or as she is now, for I am Daisy Thornton here. I have taken the
old name again and am an English governess in a wealthy French family;
and this is how it came about: I have left Berlin and the party there,
and am earning my own living, for three reasons, two of which concern
cousin Tom, and one of which has to do with you and that miserable
settlement which has troubled me so much. I thought when I brought it
back and tore it up that was the last of it, and felt so happy and
relieved. Father missed it, of course; and I told him the truth and that
I could never touch a penny of your money if I was not your wife. He did
not say a word, and I supposed it was all right, and never dreamed that
I was actually clothed and fed on the interest of that ten thousand
dollars. Father would not tell me, and you did not write. Why didn't
you, Guy? I expected a letter so long and went to the office so many
times and cried a little to myself, and said Guy has forgotten me.

"After the divorce, which I know now was a most unjust and mean affair,
the people in Indianapolis treated us with so much coldness and neglect
that at last we went to South America,—father, mother and I,—went to
live with Tom. He wanted me for his wife before you did, but I could not
marry Tom. He is very rich now, and we lived with him, and then we all
came to Europe and have traveled everywhere, and I have had teachers in
everything, and people say I am a fine scholar, and praise me much; and,
Guy, I have tried to improve just to please *you*; believe me, Guy, just
to please *you*. Tom was as a brother,—a dear, good big bear of a
brother, whom I loved as such, but nothing more. Even were you dead, I
could not marry Tom after knowing you; and I told him so when in Berlin
he asked me for the sixth time to be his wife. I had to tell him
something hard to make him understand, and when I saw how what I said
hurt him cruelly and made him cry because he was such a great big,
awkward, dear old fellow, I put my arms around his neck and cried with
him, and tried to explain, and that made him ten times worse. Oh, if
people only would not love me so much it would save me a great deal of
sorrow.

"You see, I tell you this because I want you to know exactly what I have
been doing these five years, and that I have never thought of marrying
Tom or anybody. I did not think I could. I felt that if I belonged to
anybody it was you, and I cannot have Tom, and father was very angry and
taunted me with living on Tom's money, which I did not know before, and
then he accidently let out about the marriage settlement, and that hurt
me worse than the other.

"Oh, Guy, how can I give it up? Surely there must be a way now I am of
age. I was so humiliated about it, and after all that passed between
father and Tom and me, I could not stay in Berlin, and never be sure
whose money was paying for my bread, and when I heard that Madame
Lafarcade, a French lady, who had spent the winter in Berlin, was
wanting an English governess for her children, I went to her, and as the
result, am here at her beautiful country-seat, just out of the city,
earning my own living and feeling so proud to do it; only, Guy, there is
an ache in my heart, a heavy, throbbing pain which will not leave me day
or night, and this is how it came there.

"Mother wrote that you were about to marry Miss Hamilton. Letters from
home brought her the news, which she thinks is true. Oh, Guy, it is not,
it cannot be true. You must not go quite away from me now, just as I am
coming back to you. For, Guy, I am—or rather, I have come, and a great
love, such as I never felt before, fills me full almost to bursting. I
always liked you, Guy; but when we were married I did not know what it
was to love,—to feel my pulses quicken as they do now just at thought of
you. If I had, how happy I could have made you, but I was a silly little
girl, and married life was distasteful to me, and I was willing to be
free, though always, way down in my heart, was something which protested
against it, and if you knew just how I was influenced and led on
insensibly to assent, you would not blame me so much. The word *divorce*
had an ugly sound to me, and I did not like it, and I have always felt
as if bound to you just the same. It would not be right for me to marry
Tom, even if I wanted to, which I do not. I am yours, Guy,—only yours,
and all these years I have studied and improved for your sake, without
any fixed idea, perhaps, as to what I expected or hoped. But when Tom
spoke the last time it came to me suddenly what I was keeping myself
for, and, just as a great body of water, when freed from its prison
walls rolls rapidly down a green meadow, so did a mighty love for you
take possession of me and permeate my whole being, until every nerve
quivered with joy, and when Tom was gone I went away alone and cried
more for my new happiness, I am afraid, than for him, poor fellow. And
yet I pitied him, too, and as I could not stay in Berlin after that I
came away to earn money enough to take me back to you. For I am coming,
or I was before I heard that dreadful news which I cannot believe.

"Is it true, Guy? Write and tell me it is not, and that you love me
still and want me back, or, if it in part is true, and you are engaged
to Julia, show her this letter and ask her to give you up, even if it is
the very day before the wedding,—for you are mine, and, sometimes, when
the children are troublesome, and I am so tired and sorry and homesick,
I have such a longing for a sight of your dear face, and think if I
could only lay my aching head in your lap once more I should never know
pain or weariness again.

"Try me, Guy. I will be so good and loving, and make you so happy, and
your sister, too,—I was a bother to her once. I'll be a comfort now.
Tell her so, please; tell her to bid me come. Say the word yourself, and
almost before you know it I'll be there.

"Truly, lovingly, waitingly, your wife,

.. class:: right

    ":small-caps:`Daisy`."

"P. S.—To make sure of this letter's safety I shall send it to New York
by a friend, who will mail it to you.

.. class:: right

   "Again, lovingly,  :small-caps:`Daisy Thornton`."

----

This was Daisy's letter, which Guy read with such
a pang in his heart as he had never known before,
even when he was smarting the worst from wounded
love and disappointed hopes. Then he had said to
himself, "I can never suffer again as I am suffering
now," and now, alas, he felt how little he had ever
known of that pain which tears the heart and takes
the breath away.

"God help her," he moaned,—his first thought, his
first prayer for Daisy, the girl who called herself his
wife, when just across the hall was the bride of a few
hours,—another woman who bore his name and called
him her husband.

With a face as pale as ashes, and hands which
shook like palsied hands, he read again that pathetic
cry from her whom he now felt he had never ceased
to love; ay, whom he loved still, and whom, if he
could, he would have taken to his arms so gladly, and
loved and cherished as the priceless thing he had once
thought her to be. The first moments of agony
which followed the reading of the letter were Daisy's
wholly, and in bitterness of soul the man she had cast
off and thought to take again cried out, as he
stretched his arms toward an invisible form: "Too
late, darling; too late. But had it come two months,
one month, or even one week ago, I would,—I would,
—have gone to you over land and sea, but now,—another
is in your place, another is my wife; Julia,—poor,
innocent Julia. God help me to keep my vow;
God help me in my need."

He was praying now; and Julia was the burden of
his prayer. And as he prayed there came into his
heart an unutterable tenderness and pity for her. He
had thought he loved her an hour ago; he believed he
loved her now, or if he did not, he would be to her
the kindest, most thoughtful of husbands, and never
let her know, by word or sign, of the terrible pain he
should always carry in his heart. "Darling Daisy,
poor Julia," he called the two women who were both
so much to him. To the first his love, to the other
his tender care, for she was worthy of it. She was
noble, and good, and womanly; he said many times
and tried to stop the rapid heart-throbs and quiet
himself down to meet her when she came back to him
with her frank, open face and smile, in which there
was no shadow of guile. She was coming now; he
heard her voice in the hall speaking to her friend, and
thrusting the fatal letter in his pocket he rose to his
feet, and steadying himself upon the table, stood
waiting for her, as, flushed and eager, she came in.

"Guy, Guy, what is it? Are you sick?" she
asked, alarmed at the pallor of his face and the
strange expression of his eyes.

He was glad she had thus construed his agitation,
and he answered that he was faint and a little sick.

"It came on suddenly, while I was sitting here.
It will pass off as suddenly," he said, trying to smile,
and holding out his hand, which she took at once in
hers.

"Is it your heart, Guy? Do you think it is your
heart?" she continued, as she rubbed and caressed his
cold, clammy hand.

A shadow of pain or remorse flitted across Guy's
face as he replied:

"I think it is my heart, but I assure you there is no
danger,—the worst is over. I am a great deal better."

And he was better with that fair girl beside him,
her face glowing with excitement, and her soft hands
pressing his. Perfectly healthy herself, she must
have imparted some life and vigor to him, for he felt
his pulse grow steadier beneath her touch, and the
blood flow more regularly through his veins. If only
he could forget that crumpled letter which lay in his
vest pocket, and seemed to burn into his flesh; forget
that, and the young girl watching for an answer and
the one word "come," he might be happy yet, for
Julia was one whom any man could love and be proud
to call his wife. And Guy said to himself that he did
love her, though not as he once loved Daisy, or as he
could love her again were he free to do so, and because
of that full love withheld, he made a mental
vow that his whole life should be given to Julia's
happiness, so that she might never know any care or
sorrow from which he could shield her.

"And Daisy?" something whispered in his ear.

"I must and will forget her," he sternly answered,
and the arm he had thrown around Julia, who was
sitting with him upon the sofa, tightened its grasp
until she winced and moved a little from him.

He was very talkative that evening, and asked his
wife many questions about her friends and the shopping
she wished to do, and the places they were to
visit; and Julia, who had hitherto regarded him as a
quiet, silent man, given to few words, wondered at
the change, and watched the bright red spots on his
cheeks, and thought how she would manage to have
medical advice for that dreadful heart-disease, which
had come like a nightmare to haunt her bridal
days.

Next morning there came a Boston paper containing
a notice of the marriage, and this Guy sent to
Daisy, with only the faint tracing of a pencil to indicate
the paragraph.

"Better so than to write," he thought; though he
longed to add the words, "Forgive me, Daisy; your
letter came too late."

And so the paper was sent, and, after a week or
two, Guy went back to his home in Cuylerville, and
the blue rooms which Julia had fitted up for Daisy
five years before became her own by right. And
Fanny Thornton welcomed her warmly to the house,
and by many little acts of thoughtfulness showed how
glad she was to have her there. And Julia was very
happy save when she remembered the heart-disease
which she was sure Guy had, and for which he would
not take advice. "There was nothing the matter with
his heart, unless it were too full of love," he told her
laughingly, and wondered to himself if in saying this
he was guilty of a lie, inasmuch as his words misled
her so completely.

After a time, however, there came a change, and
thoughts of Daisy ceased to disturb him as they once
had done. No one ever mentioned her to him, and
since the receipt of her letter he had heard no tidings
of her until six months after his marriage, when there
came to him the ten thousand dollars, with all the
interest which had accrued since the settlement first
was made. There was no word from Daisy herself,
but a letter from a lawyer in Berlin, who said all there
was to say with regard to the business, but did not tell
where Miss McDonald, as he called her, was.

Then Guy wrote Daisy a letter of thanks, to which
there came no reply, and as time went on the old
wound began to heal, the grave to close again; and
when, at last, one year after his marriage, they
brought him a beautiful little baby girl and laid it in
his arms, and then a few moments later let him into
the room where the pale mother lay, he stooped over
her, and kissing her fondly, said;

"I never loved you half as well as I do now!"

It was a pretty child, with dark blue eyes, and hair
in which there was a gleam of gold, and Guy, when
asked by his wife what he would call her, said;

"Would you object to Margaret?"

Julia knew what he meant, and like the true, noble
woman she was, offered no objection to Guy's choice,
and herself first gave the pet name of Daisy to her
child, on whom Guy settled the ten thousand dollars
sent to him by the Daisy over the sea.




CHAPTER IX.—DAISY, TOM, AND THAT OTHER ONE.
===========================================


Watching, waiting, hoping, saying to herself
in the morning, "It will come before
night," and saying to herself at night, "It
will be here to-morrow morning." Such was Daisy's
life, even before she had a right to expect an answer
to her letter.

Of the nature of Guy's reply she had no doubt.
He had loved her once, he loved her still, and he
would take her back of course. There was no truth in
that rumor of another marriage. Possibly her father,
whom she understood now better than she once did,
had gotten the story up for the sake of inducing her
through pique to marry Tom; but if so, his plan
would fail. Guy would write to her, "Come!" and
she should go, and more than once she counted the
contents of her purse and added to it the sum due
her from Madame Lafarcade, and wondered if she
would dare venture on the journey with so small a
sum.

"You so happy and white, too, this morning," her
little pupil, Pauline, said to her one day, when they
sat together in the garden, and Daisy was indulging
in a fanciful picture of her meeting with Guy.

"Yes, I am happy," Daisy said, rousing from her
revery; "but I did not know I was pale, or white, as
you term it, though, now I think of it, I do feel sick
and faint. It's the heat, I suppose. Oh! there is
Max, with the mail! He is coming this way! He
has,—he certainly has something for me!"

Daisy's cheeks were scarlet now, and her eyes were
bright as stars as she went forward to meet the man
who brought the letters to the house.

"Only a paper!—is there nothing more?" she
asked, in an unsteady voice, as she took the paper in
her hand, and recognizing Guy's handwriting, knew
almost to a certainty what was before her.

"Oh, you are sick, I must bring some water,"
Pauline exclaimed, alarmed at Daisy's white face and
the peculiar tone of her voice.

"No, Pauline, stay; open the paper for me,"
Daisy said, feeling that it would be easier so than to
read it herself, for she knew what was there, else he
would never have sent her a paper and nothing more.

Delighted to be of some use, and a little gratified
to open a foreign paper, Pauline tore off the wrapper,
starting a little at Daisy's quick, sharp cry as she
made a rent across the handwriting.

"Look, you are tearing into my name, which he
wrote," Daisy said, and then remembering herself she
sank back into her seat in the garden chair, while
Pauline wondered what harm there was in tearing an
old soiled wrapper, and why her governess should take
it so carefully in her hand and roll it up as if it had
been a living thing.

There were notices of new books, and a runaway
match in high life, and a suicide on Sumner street, and
a golden wedding in Roxbury, and the latest fashions
from Paris, into which Pauline plunged with avidity,
while Daisy listened like one in a dream, asking, when
the fashions were exhausted, "Is that all? Are there
no deaths or marriages?"

Pauline had not thought of that,—she would see;
and she hunted through the columns till she found
Guy's pencil mark, and read:

"Married, this morning, in——church, by the
Rev. Dr.——, assisted by the rector, Guy Thornton, Esq.,
of Cuylerville, to Miss Julia Hamilton, of
this city."

"Yes, yes, I see,—I know, it's very hot here, isn't
it? I think I will go in," Daisy said, her fingers
working nervously with the bit of paper she held.

But Pauline was too intent on the name Thornton
to hear what Daisy said, and she asked: "Is Mr.
Thornton your friend or your relative?"

It was natural enough question, and Daisy roused
herself to answer it, and said, quickly: "He is the
son of my husband's father."

"Oh, *oui*," Pauline rejoined, a little mystified as to
the exact relationship existing between Guy Thornton
and her teacher's husband, who she supposed was
dead, as Daisy had only confided to madame the fact
of a divorce.

"What date is the paper?" Daisy asked, and on
being told she said softly to herself: "I see; it was
too late."

There was in her mind no doubt as to what the result
would have been had her letter been in time; no
doubt of Guy's preference for herself, no regret that
she had written to him, except that the knowledge
that she loved him at last would make him wretched
with thinking "what might have been," and with the
bitter pain which cut her heart like a knife there was
mingled a pity for Guy, who would perhaps suffer
more than she did, if that were possible. She never
once thought of retribution, or of murmuring against
her fate, but accepted it meekly, albeit she staggered
under the load and grew faint as she thought of the
lonely life before her, and she so young.

Slowly she went back to her room, while Pauline
walked up and down the garden, trying to make out
the relationship between the newly-married Thornton
and her teacher.

"The son of her husband's father?" she repeated,
until at last a meaning dawned upon her, and she
said: "Then he must be her brother-in-law; but
why didn't she say so? Maybe, though, that is the
English way of putting it;" and having thus settled
the matter Pauline joined her mother, who was asking
for Mrs. Thornton.

"Gone to her room, and her brother-in-law is married.
It was marked in a paper, and I read it to her,
and she's sick," Pauline said, without, however, in the
least connecting the sickness with the marriage.

Daisy did not come down to dinner that night,
and the maid who called her the next morning reported
her as ill and acting very strangely. Through
the summer a malarious fever had prevailed to some
extent in and about Rouen, and the physician whom
Madame Lafarcade summoned to the sick girl expressed
a fear that she was coming down with it, and
ordered her kept as quiet as possible.

"She seems to have something weighing on her
mind. Has she heard any bad news from home?" he
asked, as in reply to his question where her pain was
the worst, Daisy always answered:

"It reached him too late—too late, and I am so
sorry."

Madame knew of no bad news, she said, and then
as she saw the foreign paper lying on the table, she
took it up, and, guided by the pencil marks, read the
notice of Guy Thornton's marriage, and that gave her
the key at once to Daisy's mental agitation. Daisy
had been frank with her and told as much of her story
as was necessary, and she knew that the Guy Thornton
married to Julia Hamilton had once called Daisy
his wife.

"Excuse me, she is, or she has something on her
mind, I suspect," she said to the physician, who was
still holding Daisy's hand and looking anxiously at
her flushed cheeks and bright, restless eyes.

"I thought so," he rejoined, "and it aggravates all
the symptoms of her fever. I shall call again to-night."

He did call, and found his patient worse, and the
next day he asked of Madame Lafarcade:

"Has she friends in this country? If so, they
ought to know."

A few hours later and in his lodgings at Berlin,
Tom read the following dispatch:

"Mrs. Thornton is dangerously ill. Come at
once."

It was directed to Mr. McDonald, who with his
wife had been on a trip to Russia, and was expected
daily. Feeling intuitively that it concerned Daisy,
Tom had opened it, and without a moment's hesitation
packed his valise and leaving a note for the McDonalds
when they should return, started for Rouen.
Daisy did not know him, and in her delirium she said
things to him and of him which hurt him cruelly.
Guy was her theme, and the letter which went "too
late, too late." Then she would beg of Tom to go
for Guy, to bring him to her, and tell him how much
she loved him and how good she would be if he would
only take her back.

"Father wants me to marry Tom," she said in a
whisper, and Tom's heart almost stood still as he
listened; "and Tom wanted me, too, but I couldn't,
you know, even if he were worth his weight in gold.
I could not love him. Why, he's got red hair, and
such great freckles on his face, and big feet and hands
with frecks on them. Do you know Tom?"

"Yes, I know him," Tom answered, sadly, forcing
down a choking sob, while the "big hand with the
great frecks on it," smoothed the golden hair tenderly,
and pushed it back from the burning brow.

"Don't talk any more, Daisy; it tires you so," he
said, as he saw her about to speak again.

But Daisy was not to be stopped, and she went on:

"Tom is good, though; so good, but awkward,
and I like him ever so much, but I can't be his wife.
I cannot. I cannot."

"He doesn't expect it now, or want it," came
huskily from Tom, while Daisy quickly asked:

"Doesn't he?"

"No, never any more; so, put it from your mind
and try to sleep," Tom said, and again the freckled
hands smoothed the tumbled pillows and wiped the
sweat drops from Daisy's face, while all the time the
great kind heart was breaking, and the hot tears were
rolling down the sunburnt face Daisy thought so ugly.

Tom had heard from Madame Lafarcade of Guy's
marriage and, like her, understood why Daisy's fever
ran so high, and her mind was in such turmoil. But
for himself he knew there was no hope, and with a
feeling of death in his heart he watched by her day
and night, yielding his place to no one, and saying to
madame, when she remonstrated with him and bade
him care for his own health:

"It does not matter for me. I would rather die
than not."

Daisy was better when her mother came,—saved,
the doctor said, more by Tom's care and nursing than
by his own skill, and then Tom gave up his post, and
never went near her unless she asked for him. His
"red hair and freckled face" were constantly in his
mind, making him loathe the very sight of himself.

"She cannot bear my looks, and I will not force
myself upon her," he thought; and so he staid away,
but surrounded her with every luxury money could
buy, and as soon as she was able had her removed
to a pretty little cottage which he rented and fitted up
for her, and where she would be more at home and
quieter than at Madame Lafarcade's.

And there one morning when he called to inquire
for her, he, too, was smitten down with the fever
which he had taken with Daisy's breath the many
nights and days he watched by her without rest or
sufficient food. There was a faint, followed by a long
interval of unconsciousness, and when he came to himself
he was in Daisy's own room lying on Daisy's little
bed, and Daisy herself was bending anxiously over
him, with a flush on her white cheeks and a soft, pitiful
look in her blue eyes.

"What is it? Where am I?" he asked, and Daisy
replied:

"You are here in my room; and you've got the
fever, and I'm going to take care of you, and I'm so
glad. Not glad you have the fever," she added, as she
met his look of wonder, "but glad I can repay in part
all you did for me, you dear, noble Tom! And you
are not to talk," and she laid her hand on his mouth as
she saw him about to speak. "I am strong enough;
the doctor says so, and I'd do it if he didn't, for you
are the best, the truest friend I have."

She was rubbing his hot, feverish hands, and
though the touch of her cool, soft fingers was so
delicious, poor Tom thought of the big frecks so
obnoxious to the little lady, and drawing his hands
from her grasp hid them beneath the clothes. Gladly,
too, would he have covered his face and hair from her
sight, but this he could not do and breathe, so he
begged her to leave him, and send some one in her
place. But Daisy would not listen to him.

He had nursed her day and night, she said, and she
should stay with him, and she did stay through the
three weeks when Tom's fever ran higher than hers
had done, and when Tom in his ravings talked of
things which made her heart ache with a new and
different pain from that already there.

At first there were low whisperings and incoherent
mutterings, and when Daisy asked him to whom he
was talking he answered:

"To that other one over in the corner. Don't you
see him? He is waiting for me till the fever eats me
up. There's a lot of me to eat, I'm so big and awkward,
overgrown,—that's what Daisy said. You know
Daisy, don't you? a dainty little creature, with such
delicacy of sight and touch. She doesn't like red
hair; she said so, when we thought the man in the
corner was waiting for her; and she doesn't like my
freckled face and hands,—big hands, she said they
were, and yet how they have worked like horses for
her. Oh, Daisy, Daisy, I have loved her ever since
she was a child, and I drew her to school on my sled
and cut her doll's head off to tease her. Take me
quick, please, out of her sight, where my freckled face
won't offend her."

He was talking now to that other one, the man in
the corner, who like some grim sentinel stood there
day and night, while Daisy kept her tireless watch
and Tom talked on and on,—never to her,—but always
to the other one, the man in the corner, whom he
begged to take him away.

"Bring out your boat," he would say. "It's time
we were off, for the tide is at its height, and the river
is running so fast. I thought once it would take
Daisy, but it left her and I am glad. When I am
fairly over and there's nothing but my big freckled
hulk left, cover my face, and don't let her look at me,
though I'll be white then, not red. Oh, Daisy, Daisy,
my darling, you hurt me so cruelly."

Those were terrible days for Daisy, but she never
left her post, and stood resolutely between the sick
man and *that other one* in the corner, until the latter
seemed to waver a little; his shadow was not so black,
his presence so all-pervading, and there was hope for
Tom, the doctor said. His reason came back at last,
and the fever left him, weak as a little child, with no
power to move even his poor wasted hands, which lay
outside the counterpane and seemed to trouble him,
for there was a wistful, pleading look in his gray eyes
as they went from the hands to Daisy, and his lips
whispered faintly: "Cover."

She understood him, and with a rain of tears
spread the sheet over them, and then on her knees
beside him, said to him, amid her sobs:

"Forgive me, Tom, for what I said when I was
crazy. You are not repulsive to me. You are the
truest, best, and dearest friend I ever had, and I—I—Oh,
Tom, live for my sake, and let me prove how—Oh,
Tom, I wish I had never been born."

Daisy did not stay with Tom that night. There
was no necessity for it, and she was so worn and
weary with watching that the physician declared she
must have absolute rest or be sick again. So she
staid away, and in a little room by herself fought the
fiercest battle she had ever fought, and on her knees,
with tears and bitter cries, asked for help to do right.
Not for help to know what was right. She felt sure
that she did know that, only the flesh was weak, and
there were chords of love still clinging to a past she
scarcely dared think of now, lest her courage should
fail her. Guy was lost to her forever; it was a sin
even to think of him as she must think if she thought
at all, and so she strove to put him from her,—to tear
his image from her heart, and put another in its place,—Tom,
whom she pitied so much, and whom she could
make so happy.

"No matter for myself," she said at last. "No
matter what I feel, or how sharp the pain in my heart,
if I only keep it there and never let Tom know. I
can make him happy, and I will."

There was no wavering after that decision,—no
regret for the "might have been,"—but her face was
white as snow, and about the pretty mouth there was
a quivering of the muscles, as if the words were hard
to utter, when next day she went to Tom, and sitting
down beside him, asked how he was feeling. His
eyes brightened a little when he saw her, but there
was a look on his face which made Daisy's pulse
quicken with a nameless fear, and his voice was very
weak, as he replied:

"They say I am better; but, Daisy, I know the
time is near for me to go. I shall never get well, and
I do not wish to, though life is not a gift to be thrown
away easily, and on some accounts mine has been a
happy one, but the life beyond is better, and I feel
sure I am going to it."

"Oh, Tom, Tom, don't talk so. You must not
leave me now," Daisy cried, all her composure giving
way as she fell on her knees beside him, and taking
both his hands in hers wet them with her tears.
"Tom," she began, when she could speak, "I have
been bad to you so often, and worried and wounded
you so much; but I am sorry, so sorry,—and I've
thought it all over real earnestly and seriously, and
made up my mind, and I want you to get well and
ask me that,—that—question again,—you have asked
so many times,—and—and—Tom,—I will say—yes—to
it now, and try so hard to make you happy."

Her face was crimson as if with shame, and she
dared not look at Tom until his silence startled her.
Then she stole a glance at him, and met an expression
which prompted her to go on recklessly:

"Don't look so incredulous, Tom. I am in earnest.
I mean what I say, though it may be unmaidenly
to say it. Try me, Tom. I will make you happy,
and though at first I cannot love you as I did Guy
when I sent him that letter, the love will come, born
of your great goodness and kindness of heart. Try
me, Tom, won't you?"

She kissed his thin white hands where the freckles
showed more plainly than ever, and which Tom tried to
free from her; she held them fast and looked steadily
into the face, which shone for a moment with a joy so
great that it was almost handsome, and when she said
again: "Will you, Tom?" the pale lips parted with
an effort to speak, but no sound was audible, only the
chin quivered and the tears stood in Tom's eyes as he
battled with the temptation. Should he accept the
sacrifice? It would be worth trying to live for, if
Daisy could be his wife, but ought he to join her life
with his? Could she ever learn to love him? No,
she could not, and he must put her from him, even
though she came asking him to take her. Thus Tom
decided, and turning his face to the wall, he said with
a choking sob:

"No, Daisy. It cannot be. Such happiness is not
for me now. I must not think of it, for I am going
to die. Thank you, darling, just the same. It was
kind in you and well meant, but it cannot be. I
could not make you happy. I am not like Guy;
never could be like him, and you would hate me after
a while, and the chain would hurt you cruelly.
No, Daisy, I love you too well,—and yet, Daisy,—Daisy,—why
do you tempt me so,—if it could be, I
might perhaps get well, I should try so hard."

He turned suddenly toward her, and winding both
his arms around her, drew her to him in a quick,
passionate embrace, crying piteously over her, and
saying:

"My darling, my darling, if it could have been,
but it's too late now,—God is good and will take me
to Himself. I thought a great deal before I was sick,
and believe I am a better man, and that Jesus is my
friend, and I am going to him. I'm glad you told me
what you have. It will make my last days happier,
and when I am gone, you will find that I did well
with you."

He put her from him then, for faintness and exhaustion
were stealing over him, and that was the last
that ever passed between him and Daisy on the subject
which all his life had occupied so much of his
thoughts. The fever had left him, it is true, but he
seemed to have no vital force or rallying power, and,
after a few days, it was clear even to Daisy that
Tom's life was drawing to a close. "The man in the
corner," who had troubled him so much, was there
again, and Tom was very happy. He had thought
much of death and what lay beyond during those
days when Daisy's life hung in the balance, and the
result of the much thinking had been a full surrender
of himself to God, who did not forsake him when the
dark, cold river was closing over him.

Calm and peaceful as the setting of the summer
sun was the close of his life, and up to the last he
retained his consciousness, with the exception of a few
hours, when his mind wandered a little, and he talked
to "that other one," whom no one could see, but
whose presence all felt so vividly.

"It would have been pleasant, and for a minute I
was tempted to take her at her word," he said; "but
when I remembered my hair, and face, and hands, and
how she liked nothing which was not comely, I would
not run the chance of being hated for my repulsive
looks. Poor little Daisy! she meant it all right, and
I bless her for it, and am glad she said it, but she
must not look at me when I'm dead. The frecks she
dislikes so much will show plainer then. Don't let
her come near, or, if she must, cover me up,—cover
me up,—cover me from her sight."

Thus he talked, and Daisy, who knew what he
meant, wept silently by his side, and kept the sheet
closely drawn over the hands he was so anxious to
conceal. He knew her at the last, and bade her farewell,
and told her she had been to him the dearest
thing in life; and Daisy's arm was round him, supporting
him upon the pillow, and Daisy's hand wiped
the death moisture from his brow, and Daisy's lips
were pressed to his dying face, and her ear caught his
faint whisper:

"God bless you, darling! I am going home!
Good-bye."

"The man in the corner,—that other one,"—had
claimed him, and Daisy put gently from her the lifeless
form which had once been Tom.

They buried him there in France, on a sunny slope,
where the grass was green and the flowers blossomed
in the early spring; and, when Mr. McDonald examined
his papers, he found to his surprise that, with
the exception of an annuity to himself, and several
legacies to different charitable institutions, Tom had
left to Daisy his entire fortune, stipulating only that
one-tenth of all her income should be yearly given
back to God, who had a right to it.




CHAPTER X.—MISS MCDONALD.
=========================


She took the name again, and with it, also,
Margaret, feeling that Daisy was far too
girlish an appellation for one who clad
herself in the deepest mourning, and felt, when she
stood at poor Tom's grave, more wretched and desolate
than many a wife has felt when her husband was
buried from sight.

Tom had meant to make her parents independent
of her so that she need not have them with her unless
she chose to do so, for knowing Mr. McDonald as he
did, he thought she would be happier without him;
but God so ordered it that within three months after
poor Tom's death, they made another grave beside
his, and Daisy and her mother were alone.

It was spring time, and the two desolate women
bade adieu to their dead, and made their way to
England, and from there to Scotland, where among
the heather hills they passed the summer in the utmost
seclusion.

Here Daisy had ample time for thought, which
dwelt mostly upon the past and the happiness she cast
away when she consented to the sundering of the tie
which had bound her to Guy Thornton.

"Oh, how could I have been so foolish and so
weak," she said, as with intense contempt for herself,
she read over the journal she had kept at Elmwood
during the first weeks of her married life.

Guy had said it would be pleasant for her to refer
to its pages in after years, little dreaming with what
sore anguish of heart poor Daisy would one day weep
over the senseless things recorded there.

"Can it be I was ever that silly little fool?" she
said bitterly, as she finished her journal. "And how
could Guy love me as he did. Oh, if I but had the
chance again, I would make him so happy. Oh, Guy,
Guy,—my husband still,—mine more than Julia's, if
you could know how much I love you now; nor can
I feel it wrong to do so, even though I never hope to
see your face again, Guy, Guy, the world is so desolate,
and I am young, only twenty-three, and life is so
long and dreary with nothing to live for or to do. I
wish almost that I were dead like Tom, only I dare
not think I should go to the Heaven where he has
gone."

In her sorrow and loneliness, Daisy was fast sinking
into an unhealthy morbid state of mind from
which nothing seemed to rouse her.

"Nothing to live for,—nothing to do," was her
lament, until one golden September day, when there
came a turning point in her life, and she found there
was something to do.

There was no regular service that Sunday in the
church where she usually attended, and as the day was
fine and she was far too restless to remain at home,
she proposed to her mother that they walk to a little
chapel about a mile away, where a young Presbyterian
clergyman was to preach.

She had heard much of his eloquence, and as his
name was McDonald, he might possibly be some distant
relative, inasmuch as her father was of Scotch
descent, and she felt a double interest in him, and
with her mother was among the first who entered the
little humble building, and took a seat upon one of
the hard, uncomfortable benches near the pulpit.

The speaker was young,—about Tom's age,—and
with a look on his florid face and a sound in his voice
so like that of the dead man that Daisy half started
to her feet when he first took his stand in front of her,
and announced the opening hymn. His text was,
"Why stand ye here all the day idle?" and so well
did he handle it, and so forcible were his gestures and
eloquent his style of delivery, that Daisy listened to
him spell-bound, her eyes fixed intently upon his
glowing face, and her ears drinking in every word he
uttered.

After dwelling a time upon the loiterers in God's
vineyard, the idlers from choice, who worked not for
lack of an inclination to do so, he spoke next of the
class whose whole life was a weariness for want of
something to do, and to these he said, "Have you
never read how, when the disciples rebuked the grateful
woman for wasting upon her Master's head what
might have been sold for three hundred pence, and
given to the poor, Jesus said unto them, 'The poor ye
have with you always,' and is it not so, my hearers?
Are there no poor at your door to be fed, no hungry
little ones to be cared for out of the abundance which
God has only loaned for this purpose? Are there no
wretched homes which you can make happier, no aching
hearts which a kind word would cheer? Remember
there is a blessing pronounced for even the cup of
cold water, and how much greater shall be the reward
of those who, forgetting themselves, seek the good of
others and turn not away from the needy and the
desolate. See to it, then, you to whom God has given
much. See to it that you sit not down in idle ease,
wasting upon yourself alone the goods designed for
others; for to whom much is given of him much shall
be required."

Attracted, perhaps, by the deep black of Daisy's
attire, or the something about her which marked her
as different from the mass of his hearers, the speaker
seemed to address the last of his remarks directly to
her, and had the dead Tom risen from his grave and
spoken with her face to face, she could hardly have
been more affected than she was. The resemblance
was so striking and the voice so like her cousin's, that
she felt as if she had received a message direct from
him; or, if not from him, she surely had from God,
whose almoner she henceforth would be.

That day was the beginning of a new life to her.
Thenceforth there must be no more repining; no more
idle, listless days, no more wishing for something to
do. There was work all around her, and she found it
and did it with a will,—first, from a sense of duty, and
at last for the real pleasure it afforded her to carry
joy and gladness to the homes where want and sorrow
had been so long.

Hearing that there was sickness and destitution
among the miners in Peru, where her possessions
were, she went there early in November, and many a
wretched heart rejoiced because of her, and many a
lip blessed the beautiful lady whose coming among
them was productive of so much good. Better dwellings,
better wages, a church, a school-house followed
in her footsteps, and then, when everything seemed in
good working order, there came over her a longing for
her native country, and the next autumn found her in
New York, where in a short space of time everybody
knew of the beautiful Miss McDonald, who was a
millionaire and who owned the fine house and grounds
in the upper part of the city not far from the Park.

Here society claimed her again, and Daisy, who
had no morbid fancies now, yielded in part to its
claims, and became, if not a belle, at least a favorite,
whose praises were in every mouth. But chiefly was
she known and loved by the poor and the despised
whom she daily visited, and to whom her presence
was like the presence of an angel.

"You do look lovely and sing so sweet; I know
there's nothing nicer in Heaven," said a little piece of
deformity to her one day as it lay dying in her arms.
"I'se goin' to Heaven, which I shouldn't have done if
you'se hadn't gin me the nice bun and told me of
Jesus. I loves Him now, and I'll tell Him how you
bringed me to Him."

Such was the testimony of one dying child, and it
was dearer to Daisy than all the words of flattery ever
poured into her ear. As she had brought that little
child to God so she would bring others, and she made
her work among the children especially, finding there
her best encouragement and greatest success.

Once when Guy Thornton chanced to be in the
city and driving in the Park, he saw a singular sight—a
pair of splendid bays arching their graceful necks
proudly, their silver-tipped harness flashing in the
sunlight, and their beautiful mistress radiant with
happiness as she sat in her open carriage, not with
gayly-dressed friends, but amid a group of poorly-clad
pale-faced little ones, to whom the Park was paradise,
and she the presiding angel.

"Look,—that's Miss McDonald," Guy's friend said
to him, "the greatest heiress in New York, and I
reckon the one who does the most good. Why, she
supports more old people and children and runs more
ragged schools than any half-dozen men in the city,
and I don't suppose there's a den in New York where
she has not been, and never once, I'm told, was she
insulted, for the vilest of them stand between her and
harm. Once a miscreant on Avenue A knocked a boy
down for accidently stepping in a pool of water and
spattering her white dress in passing. Friday nights
she has a reception for these people, and you ought to
see how well they behave. At first they were noisy
and rough, and she had to have the police, but now
they are quiet and orderly as you please, Perhaps
you'd like to go to one. I know Miss McDonald, and
will take you with me."

Guy said he should not be in town on Friday, as
he must, return to Cuylerville the next day, and with
a feeling he could not quite analyze he turned to look
at the turnout which excited so much attention. But
it was not so much at the handsome bays and the
bevy of queer-looking children he gazed, as at the
lady in their midst, clad in velvet and ermine, with a
long white feather falling among the curls of her
bright hair. When Daisy first entered upon her new
life, she had affected a nun-like garb as most appropriate,
but after a little child said to her once: "I
don't like your black gown all the time. I likes
sumptin' bright and pretty," she changed her dress
and gave freer scope to her natural good taste and
love of what was becoming. And the result showed
the wisdom of the change, for the children and inmates
of the dens she visited, accustomed only to the
squallor and ugliness of their surroundings, hailed her
more rapturously than they had done before, and were
never weary of talking of the beautiful woman who
was not afraid to wear her pretty clothes into their
wretched houses, which gradually grew more clean
and tidy for her sake.

"It wasn't for the likes of them gownds to trail
through sich truck," Bridget O'Donohue said, and on
the days when Daisy was expected, she scrubbed the
floor, which, until Daisy's advent had not known
water for years, and rubbed and polished the one
wooden chair kept sacred for the lady's use.

Other women, too, caught Biddy's spirit and
scrubbed their floors and their children's faces on the
day when Miss McDonald was to call, and when she
came, she was watched narrowly, lest by some chance
a speck of dirt should fall upon her, and her becoming
dress and handsome face were commented on and remembered
as some fine show which had been seen for
nothing. Especially did the children like her in her
bright dress, and the velvet and ermine in which she
was clad when Guy met her in the Park were worn
more for their sakes, than for the gaze of those to
whom such things were no novelties. To Guy she
looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her
before, and there was in his heart a feeling like a want
of something lost, as her carriage disappeared from,
view and he lost sight of the fair face and form which
had once been his own.

The world was going well with Guy, for though
Dick Trevylian had paid no part of the one hundred
thousand dollars, and he still lived in the Brown Cottage
on the hill, he was steadily working his way to
competency, if not to wealth. His profession as lawyer,
which he had resumed, yielded him a remunerative
income, while his contributions to different
magazines were much sought after, so that to all
human appearance he was prosperous and happy.
Prosperous in his business, and happy in his wife and
little ones, for there was now a second child, a baby
Guy of six weeks old, and when on his return from
New York the father bent over the cradle of his boy,
and kissed his baby face, that image seen in the Park
seemed to fade away, and the caresses he gave to Julia
had in them no faithlessness or insincerity. She was
a noble woman, and had made him a good wife, and
he loved her truly, though with a different, less absorbing,
less ecstatic love than he had given to Daisy. But
he did not tell her of Miss McDonald. Indeed, that
name was never spoken now, nor was any reference
ever made to her except when the little Daisy sometimes
asked where was the lady for whom she was
named, and why she did not send her a doll.

"I hardly think she knows there is such a chit as
you," Guy said to her once, when sorely pressed on
the subject; and then the child wondered how that
could be; and wished she was big enough to write her
a letter and ask her to come and see her.

Every day after that little Daisy played "make
b'leve Miss Mack-Dolly" was there, said Mack-Dolly
being represented by a bundle of shawls tied up to
look like a figure and seated in a chair. At last there
came to the cottage a friend of Julia's, a young lady
from New York, who knew Miss McDonald, and who,
while visiting in Cuylerville, accidentally learned that
she was the divorced wife, of whose existence she
knew, but of whom she had never spoken to Mrs.
Thornton. Hearing the little one talking one day to
Miss Mack-Dolly, asking her why she never wrote, nor
sent a "sing" to her *sake-name*, the young lady said:

"Why don't you send Miss McDonald a letter?
You tell me what to say and I'll write it down for
you, but don't let mamma know till you see if you get
anything."

The little girl's fancy was caught at once with the
idea, and the following letter was the result:

.. class:: right

    ":small-caps:`Brown Cottage`, 'Most Tissmas time.

":small-caps:`Dear Miss Mac-Dolly`:—I'se an 'ittle dirl named for you, I
is, Daisy Thornton, an' my papa is Mr. Guy, an' mam-ma is Julia, and
'ittle brother is Guy, too—only he's a baby, and vomits up his dinner
and ties awfully sometimes; an' I knows anoder 'ittle dirl named for
somebody who dives her 'sings,' a whole lot, an' why doesn't youse dive
me some, when I'se your sake-name, an' loves you ever so much, and why
you never turn here to see me? I wish you would. I ask papa is you
pretty, an' he tell me yes, bootiful, an' every night I pays for you and
say God bress papa an' mam-ma, an' auntie, and Miss Mac-Dolly, and
'ittle brodder, an' make Daisy a dood dirl, and have Miss Mac-Dolly send
her sumptin' for Tissmas, for Christ's sake. An' I wants a turly headed
doll that ties and suts her eyes when she does to seep, and wears a
shash and a pairesol, and anodder big dolly to be her mam-ma and pank
her when she's naughty, an' I wants an' 'ittle fat-iran, an' a
cook-stove, an' washboard. I'se dot a tub. An' I wants some dishes an' a
stenshun table, an' 'ittle bedstead, an' yuffled seets, an' pillars, an'
bue silk kilt, an' ever many sings which papa cannot buy, cause he
hasn't dot the money. Vill you send them, Miss Mac-Dolly, pese, an' your
likeness, too. I wants to see how you looks. My mam-ma is pretty, with
back hair an' eyes, but she's awful old—I dess. How old is you? Papa's
hair is some dray, an' his viskers, too. My eyes is bue.

.. class:: right

    "Yours, respectfully, ":small-caps:`Daisy Thornton`."

----

Miss McDonald had been shopping since ten in the
morning, and her carriage had stood before dry goods
stores, and toy shops, and candy stores, while bundle
after bundle had been deposited on the cushions and
others ordered to be sent. But she was nearly through
now, and, just as it was beginning to grow dark in the
streets, she bade her coachman drive home, where
dinner was waiting for her in the dining-room, and
her mother was waiting in the parlor. Mrs. McDonald
was not very well, and had kept her room all day, but
she was better that night, and came down to dine with
her daughter. The December wind was cold and raw,
and a few snowflakes fell on Daisy's hat and cloak as
she ran up the steps and entered the warm, bright
room, which seemed so pleasant when contrasted with
the dreariness without.

"Oh, how nice this is, and how tired and cold I
am!" she said, as she bent over the blazing fire.

"Are you through with your shopping?" Mrs. McDonald
asked, in a half-querulous tone, as if she did
not altogether approve of her daughter's acts.

"Yes, all through, except a shawl for old Sarah
Mackie, and a few more toys for Biddy Warren's
blind boy," Daisy said, and her mother replied:
"Well, I'm sure I shall be glad for your sake when it
is over. You'll make youself sick, and you are nearly
worn out now, remembering everbody in New York."

"Not quite everybody, mother," Daisy rejoined,
cheerfully; "only those whom everybody forgets,—the
poor, whom we have with us always. Don't you
remember the text, and the little kirk where we heard
it preached from? But come,—dinner is ready, and I
am hungry, I assure you."

She led the way to the handsome dining-room, and
took her seat at the table, looking, in her dark street
dress, as her mother had said, pale and worn, as if the
shopping had been very hard upon her. And yet it
was not so much the fatigue of the day which affected
her as the remembrance of a past she did not often
dare to recall.

It was at Christmas time years ago that she first
met with Guy, and all the day long, as she turned
over piles of shawls, and delaines, and flannels, or
ordered packages of candy, and bonbons, and dollies
by the dozen, her thoughts had been with Guy and
the time she met him at Leiter and Field's and he
walked home with her. It seemed to her years and
years ago, and the idea of having lived so long made
her feel old and tired and worn. But the nice dinner
and the cheer of the room revived her, and her face
looked brighter and more rested when she returned to
the parlor, and began to show her mother her purchases.

Daisy did not receive many letters except on business,
and, as these usually came in the morning, she
did not think to ask if the postman had left her anything;
and so it was not until her mother had retired
and she was about going to her own room, that she
saw a letter lying on the hall-stand. Miss Barker,
who had instigated the letter, had never written to
her more than once or twice, and then only short
notes, and she did not recognize the handwriting at
once. But she saw it was post-marked Cuylerville,
and a sick, faint sensation crept over her as she wondered
who had sent it, and if it contained news of
Guy. It was long since she had heard of him,—not,
in fact, since poor Tom's death; and she knew nothing
of the little girl called for herself, and thus had
no suspicion of the terrible shock awaiting her, when
at last she broke the seal. Miss Barker had written a
few explanatory lines, which were as follows:

.. class:: right

    ":small-caps:`Cuylerville`, Dec., 18—.

":small-caps:`Dear Miss McDonald`:—Since saying good-bye to you last
June, and going off to the mountains and seaside, while you, like a good
Samaritan, stayed in the hot city to look after 'your people,' I have
flitted hither and thither until at last I floated out to Cuylerville to
visit Mrs. Guy Thornton, who is a friend and former schoolmate of mine.
Here,—not in the house, but in town,—I have heard a story which
surprised me not a little, and I now better understand that sad look I
have so often seen on your face without at all suspecting the cause.

"Dear friend, pardon me, won't you, for the liberty I have taken since
knowing your secret? You would, I am sure, if you only knew what a dear,
darling little creature Mr. Thornton's eldest child is. Did you know he
had called her Daisy for you? He has, and with her blue eyes and bright
auburn hair, she might pass for your very own, with the exception of her
nose, which is decidedly *retrousse*. She is three years old, and the
most precocious little witch you ever saw. What think you of her making
up a bundle of shawls and aprons, and christening it *Miss Mac-Dolly*,
her name for you, and talking to it as if it were really the famous and
beautiful woman she fancies it to be? She is your 'sake-name,' she says,
and before I knew the facts of the case, I was greatly amused by her
talk to the bundle of shawls which she reproached for never having sent
her anything. When I asked Julia (that's Mrs. Thornton) who Miss
Mac-Dolly was, she merely answered, 'the lady for whom Daisy was named,'
and that was all I knew until the gossips enlightened me, when, without
a word to any one, I resolved upon a liberty which I thought I could
venture to take with you. I suggested the letter which I inclose, and
which I wrote exactly as the words came from the little lady's lips.
Neither Mr. Thornton, nor his wife, know aught of the letter, nor will
they unless you respond, for the child will keep her own counsel, I am
well assured.

"Again forgive me if I have done wrong, and believe me, as ever,

.. class:: right

    "Yours, sincerely, ":small-caps:`Ella Barker`."

----

Daisy's face was pale as ashes as she read Miss
Barker's letter, and then snatching up the other devoured
its contents almost at a glance, while her
breath came in panting gasps, and her heart seemed
trying to burst through her throat. She could neither
move nor cry out for a moment, but sat like one
turned to stone, with a sense of suffocation oppressing
her, and a horrible pain in her heart. She had
thought the grave was closed, the old wound healed
by time and silence, and now a little child had torn it
open, and it was bleeding and throbbing again with a
pang such as she had never felt before, while there
crept over her such a feeling of desolation and loneliness,
a want of something unpossessed, as few have
ever experienced.

But for her own foolishness that sweet little child
might have been hers, she thought, as her heart went
after the little one with an indescribable yearning
which made her stretch out her arms as if to take the
baby to her bosom and hold it there forever. Guy
had called it for *her*, and that touched her more than
anything else. He had not forgotten her then. She
had never supposed he had, but to be thus assured of
it was very sweet, and as she thought of it, and read
again little Daisy's letter, the tightness about her
heart and the choking sensation in her throat began
to give way, and one after another the great tears
rolled down her cheeks, slowly at first, but gradually
faster and faster until they fell in torrents, and a tempest
of sobs shook her frame, as with her head bowed
upon her dressing-table she gave vent to her grief.
It seemed to her she never could stop crying or grow
calm again, for as often as she thought of the touching
words, "I pays for you," there came a fresh burst
of sobs and tears, until at last nature was exhausted,
and with a low moan Daisy sank upon her knees and
tried to pray, the words which first sprang to her lips
framing themselves into thanks that somewhere in the
world there was one who prayed for her and loved
her too, even though the love might have for its object
merely dolls, and candies, and toys. And these
the child should have in abundance, and Miss McDonald
found herself longing for the morrow in which to
begin again the shopping she had thought was nearly
ended.

It was in vain next day that her mother remonstrated
against her going out, pleading her white,
haggard face and the rawness of the day. Daisy was
not to be detained at home, and before ten o'clock she
was down on Broadway, and the dolly with the
"shash," and "pairesol," which she had seen the day
before under its glass case was hers for twenty-five
dollars, and the plainer bit of china, who was to be
dollie's mother and perform the parental duty of
"panking her when she was naughty," was also purchased,
and the dishes, and the table, and stove, and
bedstead, with ruffled sheets, and pillow-cases, and
blue satin spread, and the washboard, and clothes-bars,
and tiny wringer, and diverse other toys, were bought
with a disregard of expense which made Miss McDonald
a wonder to those who waited on her. Such a
Christmas-box was seldom sent to a child as that which
Daisy packed in her room that night, with her mother
looking on and wondering what Sunday-school was to
be the recipient of all those costly presents, and suggesting
that cheaper articles would have answered
just as well.

Everything the child had asked for was there except
the picture. That Daisy dared not send, lest it
should look too much like thrusting herself upon Guy's
notice and wound Julia his wife.

Daisy was strangely pitiful in her thoughts of
Julia, who would in her turn have pitied her for her
delusion, could she have known how sure she was that
but for the tardiness of that letter Guy would have
chosen his first love in preference to any other.

And it was well that each believed herself first in
the affection of the man to whom Daisy wanted so
much to send something as a proof of her unalterable
love. They were living still in the brown cottage;
they were not able to buy Elmwood back. Oh, if she
only dared to do it, how gladly her Christmas gift
should be the handsome place which they had been so
proud of. But that would hardly do; Guy might not
like to be so much indebted to her; he was proud
and sensitive in many points, and so she abandoned
the plan for the present, thinking that by and by she
would purchase and hold it as a gift to her namesake
on her bridal day. That will be better, she said, as
she put the last article in the box and saw it leave
her door, directed to Guy Thornton's care.

----

Great was the surprise at the Brown Cottage,
when, on the very night before Christmas the box arrived
and was deposited in the dining-room, where
Guy and Julia, Miss Barker and Daisy, gathered
eagerly around it, the later exclaiming:

"I knows where it tum from, I do. My sake-name,
Miss Mac-Dolly, send it, see did. I writ and
ask her would see, an' see hab."

"What!" Guy said, as, man-like, he began deliberately
to untie every knot in the string which his
wife in her impatience would have cut at once.
"What does the child mean? Do you know, Julia?"

"I do. I'll explain," Miss Barker said, and in as
few words as possible she told what she had done,
while Julia listened with a very grave face, and Guy
was pale to his lips as he went on untying the string
and opening the box.

There was a letter lying on the top which he
handed to Julia, who steadied her voice to read
aloud:

.. class:: right

    "New York, December 22, 18—.

"Darling little *sake-name* :small-caps:`Daisy`:—Your letter made Miss
Mack-Dolly very happy, and she is so glad to send you the doll with a
*shash*, and the other toys. Write to me again and tell me if they suit
you. God bless you, sweet little one, is the prayer of

.. class:: right

    ":small-caps:`Miss McDonald`."

After that the grave look left Julia's face, and
Guy was not quite so pale, as he took out, one after
another, the articles, which little Daisy hailed with
rapturous shouts and exclamations of delight.

"Oh, isn't she dood, and don't you love her,
papa?" she said, while Guy replied:

"Yes, it was certainly very kind in her, and generous.
No other little girl in town will have such a
box as this."

He was very white, and there was a strange look
in his eyes, but his voice was perfectly natural as he
spoke, and one who knew nothing of his former relations
to Miss McDonald would never have suspected
how his whole soul was moved by this gift to his little
daughter.

"You must write and thank her," he said to Julia,
who, knowing that this was proper, assented without a
word, and when on the morning after Christmas Miss
McDonald opened with trembling hands the envelope
bearing the Cuylerville post-mark, she felt a
keen pang of disappointment in finding only a few
lines from Julia, who expressed her own and little
Daisy's thanks for the beautiful Christmas box, and
signed herself:

    "Truly, :small-caps:`Mrs. Guy Thornton`."

Not Julia, but Mrs. Guy, and that hurt Daisy more
than anything else.

"Mrs. Guy Thornton! Why need she thrust upon
me the name I used to bear?" she whispered, and her
lip quivered a little, and the tears sprang to her eyes
as she remembered all that lay between the present
and the time when she had been Mrs. Guy Thornton.

She was Miss McDonald now, and Guy was another
woman's husband, and with a bitter pain in her
heart, she put away Julia's letter, saying, as she did
so, "And that's the end of that."

The box business had not resulted just as she
hoped it would. She had thought Guy would write
himself, and by some word or allusion assure her of
his remembrance, but instead, there had come to her a
few perfectly polite and well-expressed lines from
Julia, who had the *impertinence* to sign herself Mrs.
Guy Thornton! It was rather hard and sorely disappointing,
and for many days Miss McDonald's face
was very white and sad, and both the old and young
whom she visited as usual wondered what had come
over the beautiful lady, to make her "so pale and
sorry."




CHAPTER XI.—AT SARATOGA.
========================


There were no more letters from Mrs. Guy
Thornton until the next Christmas, when
another box went to little Daisy, and was
acknowledged as before. Then another year glided
and a third box went to Daisy, and then one summer
afternoon in the August following, there came to
Saratoga a gay party from New York, and among
other names registered at one of the large hotels was
that of Miss McDonald. It seemed to be her party, or
at least she was its center, and the one to whom the
others deferred as to their head. Daisy was in perfect
health that summer, and in unusually good spirits;
and when in the evening, yielding to the entreaties of
her friends, she entered the ball-room, clad in flowing
robes of blue and white, with costly jewels on her
neck and arms, she was acknowledged at once as the
star and belle of the evening. She did not dance,—she
rarely did that now, but after a short promenade
through the room she took a seat near the door, and
was watching the gay dancers, when she felt her arm
softly touched, and turning saw her maid standing by
her, with an anxious, frightened look upon her face.

"Come, please, come quick," she said, in a whisper;
and following her out, Miss McDonald asked what was
the matter.

"*This*, you must go away at once. I'll pack your
things. I promised not to tell, but I must. I can't
see your pretty face all spoiled and ugly."

"What do you mean?" the lady asked, and after a
little questioning she made out from the girl's statement,
that in strolling on the back piazza she had
stumbled upon her first cousin, of whose whereabouts
she had known nothing for a long time.

This girl, Marie, had, it seemed, come to Saratoga
a week or ten days before, with her master's family
consisting of his wife and two little children. As the
hotel was crowded, they were assigned rooms for the
night in a distant part of the house, with a promise of
something much better on the morrow. In the morning,
however, the lady, who had not been well for
some days, was too sick to leave her bed, and the
doctor, who was called in to see her, pronounced the
disease,—here Sarah stopped and gasped for breath,
and looked behind her and all ways, and finally whispered
a word which made even Miss McDonald start a
little and wince with fear.

"He do call it the *very-o-lord*," Sarah said, "but
Mary says it's the *very old one* himself. She knows,
she has had it, and you can't put down a pin where it
didn't have its claws. They told the landlord, who
was for putting them straight out of doors, but the
doctor said the lady must not be moved,—it was sure
death to do it. It was better to keep quiet, and not
make a panic. Nobody need to know it in the house,
and their rooms are so far from everybody that nobody
would catch it. So he let them stay, and the
gentleman takes care of her, and Mary keeps the
children in the next room, and carries and brings the
things, and keeps away from everybody. Two of the
servants know it, and they've had it, and don't tell,
and she said I mustn't, nor come that side of the house,
but I must tell you so that you can leave to-morrow.
The lady is very bad, and nobody takes care of her
but Mr. Thornton. Mary takes things to the door,
and leaves them outside where he can get them."

"What did you call the gentleman?" Miss McDonald
asked, her voice faltering and her cheek
blanching a little.

"Mr. Thornton, from Cuylerville, a place far in
the country," was the girl's reply; and then, without
waiting to hear more, Miss McDonald darted away,
and going to the office, turned the leaves of the Register
to the date of ten or eleven days ago, and read
with a beating heart and quick coming breath:

"Mr. and Mrs. Guy Thornton, two children and
servant. No. -- and --."

Yes, it was Guy; there could be no mistake, and
in an instant her resolution was taken. Calling her
maid, she sent for her shawl and hat, and then, bidding
her follow, walked away in the moonlight. The previous
summer when at Saratoga, she had received
medical treatment from Dr. Schwartz, whom she knew
well, and to whose office she directed her steps. He
seemed surprised to see her at that hour, but greeted
her cordially, asked when she came to town and what
he could do for her.

"Tell me if this is still a safeguard," she said, baring
her beautiful white arm, and showing a large
round scar. "Will this insure me against disease?"

The doctor's face flushed, and he looked uneasily
at her as he took her arm in his hand and examining
the scar closely, said:

"The points are still distinct. I should say the
vaccination was thorough."

"But another will be safer. Have you fresh matter?"
Daisy asked, and he replied:

"Yes, some just from a young, healthy cow. I
never use the adulterated stuff which has been humanized.
How do I know what humors may be lurking
in the blood? Why, some of the fairest, sweetest
babies are full of scrofula."

He was going on further with his discussion, when
Daisy, who knew his peculiarities, interrupted him.

"Never mind the lecture now. Vaccinate me
quick, and let me go."

It was soon done; the doctor saying, as he put
away his vial:

"You were safe without it, I think, and with it you
may have no fears whatever."

He looked at her curiously again as if asking what
she knew or feared, and observing the look, Daisy said
to him:

"Do you attend the lady at the hotel?"

He bowed affirmatively and glanced uneasily at
Sarah, who was looking on in surprise.

"Is she very sick?" was the next inquiry.

"Yes, very sick."

"And does no one care for her but her husband?"

"No one."

"Has she suffered for care,—a woman's care, I
mean?"

"Well, not exactly; and yet she might be more
comfortable with a woman about her. Women are
naturally better nurses than men, and Mr. Thornton is
quite worn out, but it does not make much difference
now; the lady——"

Daisy did not hear the last part of the sentence,
and bidding him good-night, she went back to the
hotel as swiftly as she had left it, while the doctor
stood watching the flutter of her white dress, wondering
how she found it out, and if she would "tell and
raise *Cain* generally."

"Of course not. I know her better than that," he
said, to himself. "Poor woman" (referring then to
Julia). "Nothing, I fear, can help her now."

Meanwhile, Daisy had reached the hotel, and without
going to her own room, bade Sarah tell her the
way to No. —.

"What! Oh, Miss McDonald! You surely are
not——" Sarah gasped, clutching at the dress, which
her mistress took from her grasp, saying:

"Yes, I am going to see that lady. I know her, or
of her, and I'm not afraid. Must we let her die
alone?"

"But your face,—your beautiful face," Sarah said,
and then Daisy did hesitate a moment, and glancing
into a hall mirror, wondered how the face she saw
there, and which she knew was beautiful, would look
scarred and disfigured as she had seen faces in New
York.

There was a momentary conflict, and then, with an
inward prayer that Heaven would protect her, she
passed on down the narrow hall and knocked softly at
No. —, while Sarah stood wringing her hands in
genuine distress, and feeling as if her young mistress
had gone to certain ruin.




CHAPTER XII.—IN THE SICK ROOM.
==============================


Julia had the small-pox in its most aggravated
form. Where she took it, or when,
she did not know; nor did it matter. She
*had* it, and for ten days she had seen no one but her
husband and physician, and had no care but such as
Guy could give her. He had been unremitting in his
attention. Tender and gentle as a woman, he had
nursed her night and day, with no thought for himself
and the risk he ran. It was a bad disease at the best,
and now in its worse type it was horrible, but Julia
bore up bravely, thinking always more of others than
of herself, and feeling so glad that Providence had
sent them to those out-of-the-way rooms, where she
had at first thought she could not pass a night
comfortably. Her children were in the room adjoining,
and she could hear their little voices as they played
together, or asked for their mamma, and why they
must not see her. Alas! they would never see her
again; she knew, and Guy knew it too. The doctor
had told them so when he left them that night, and
between the husband and wife words had been spoken
such as are only said when hearts which have been one
are about to be severed for ever.

To Julia there was no terror in death, save as it
took her from those she loved, her husband and her
little ones, and these she had given into God's keeping
knowing His promises are sure. To Guy she had
said:

"You have made me so happy. I want you to
remember when I am gone, that I would not have one
look or act of yours changed if I could, and yet, forgive
me, Guy, for saying it, but I know you must
often have thought of that other one whom, you loved
first, and it may be best."

Guy could not speak, but he smoothed her hair
tenderly, and his tears dropped upon the swollen face
he could not kiss, as Julia went on.

"But if you did, you never showed it in the least,
and I bless you for it. Take good care of my children;
teach them to remember their mother, and if
in time there comes another in my place, and other
little ones than mine call you father, don't forget me
quite, because I love you so much. Oh, Guy, my darling,
it is hard to say good-bye, and know that after a
little this world will go on the same as if I had never
been. Don't think I am afraid. I am not, for Jesus
is with me, and I know I am safe; but still there's a
clinging to life, which has been so pleasant to me.
Tell your sister how I loved her. I know she will
miss me, and be good to my children, and if you ever
meet *that other one*, tell her,—tell her,—I——"

The faint voice faltered here, and when it spoke
again, it said:

"Lift me up, Guy, so I can breathe better while I
tell you."

He lifted her up and held her in his arms, while
through the open window the summer air and the silver
moonlight streamed, and in the distance was
heard the sound of music as the dance went merrily
on. And just then, when she was in the minds of
both, Daisy came, and her gentle knock broke the
silence of the room and startled both Guy and Julia.

Who was it that sought entrance to that death-laden,
disease-poisoned room? Not the doctor, sure,
for he always entered unannounced, and who else
dared to come there? Thus Guy questioned, hesitating
to answer the knock, when to his utter surprise
the door opened and a little figure, clad in airy robes
of white, with its bright hair wreathed with flowers
and gems, came floating in, the blue eyes shining like
stars, and the full red lips parted with the smile, half
pleased, half shy, which Guy remembered so well.

"Daisy, Daisy!" he cried, and his voice rang like
a bell through the room, as, laying Julia's head back
upon the pillow, he sprang to Daisy's side, and taking
her by the shoulder, pushed her gently toward the
door, saying:

"Why have you come here? Leave us at once;
don't you see? don't you know?" and he pointed
toward Julia, whose face showed so plainly in the gaslight.

"Yes, I know, and I came to help you take care of
her. I am not afraid," Daisy said, and freeing herself
from his grasp, she walked straight up to Julia and
laid her soft white hand upon her head. "I am
Daisy," she said, "and I've come to take care of you.
I just heard you were here. How hot your poor head
is; let me bathe it; shall I?"

She went to the bowl, and wringing a cloth in ice
water, bathed the sick woman's head and held the cool
cloth to the face and wiped the parched lips and
rubbed the feverish hands, while Guy stood, looking
on, bewildered and confounded, and utterly unable to
say a word or utter a protest to this angel, as it seemed
to him, who had come unbidden to his aid, forgetful of
the risk she ran and the danger she incurred. Once,
as she turned her beautiful face to him and he saw
how wondrously fair and lovely it was, lovely with a
different expression from any he had ever seen there,
it came over him with a thrill of horror that that face
must not be marred and disfigured with the terrible
pestilence, and he made another effort to send her
away. But Daisy would not go.

"I am not afraid," she said. "I have just been
vaccinated, and there was already a good scar on my
arm; look!" and she pushed back her sleeve, and
showed her round, white arm with the mark upon it.

Guy did not oppose her after that, but let her do
what she liked, and when, an hour later, the doctor
came, he found his recent visitor sitting on Julia's bed,
with Julia's head lying against her bosom and Julia
herself asleep. Some word which sounded very much
like "thunderation" escaped his lips, but he said no
more, for he saw in the sleeping woman's face a look
he never mistook. It was death; and ten minutes
after he entered the room Julia Thornton lay dead in
Daisy's arms.

There was a moment or so of half consciousness,
during which they caught the words, "So kind in you;
it makes me easier; be good to the children; one is
called for you, but Guy loved me too. Good-bye. I
am going to Jesus."

That was the last she ever spoke, and a moment
after she was dead. In his fear lest the facts should
be known to his guests, the host insisted that the body
should be removed under cover of the night, and as
Guy knew the railway officials would object to taking
it on any train, there was no alternative except to
bury it in town; and so there was brought to the
room a close plain coffin, and Daisy helped lay Julia
in it, and put a white flower in her hair and folded her
hands upon her bosom, and then watched from the
window the little procession which followed the body
out to the cemetery, where, in the stillness of the coming
day, they buried it, together with everything which
had been used about the bed, Daisy's party dress
included; and when at last the full morning broke,
with stir and life in the hotel, all was empty and still
in the fumigated chamber of death, and in the adjoining
room, clad in a simple white wrapper, with a blue
ribbon in her hair, Daisy sat with Guy's little boy on
her lap and her namesake at her side, amusing them as
best she could and telling them their mamma had gone
to live with Jesus.

"Who'll be our mamma now? We must have
one. Will oo?" little Daisy asked, as she hung about
the neck of her new friend.

She knew it was Miss Mack-Dolly, her "sake-name,"
and in her delight at seeing her and her admiration
of her great beauty, she forgot in part the
dead mamma on whose grave the summer sun was
shining.

The Thorntons left the hotel that day and went
back to the house in Cuylerville, which had been
closed for a few weeks, for Miss Frances was away
with some friends in Connecticut. But she returned
at once when she heard the dreadful news, and was
there to receive her brother and his motherless little
ones. He told her of Daisy when he could trust himself
to talk at all, of Julia's sickness and death, and
Miss Frances felt her heart go out as it had never
gone before toward the woman about whom little
Daisy talked constantly.

"Most bootiful lady," she said, "an' looked des
like an 'ittle dirl, see was so short, an' her eyes were
so bue an' her hair so turly."

Miss McDonald had won Daisy's heart, and knowing
that made her own happier and lighter than it had
been since the day when the paper came to her with
the marked paragraph which crushed her so
completely. There had been but a few words spoken between
herself and Guy, and these in the presence of
others, but at their parting he had taken her soft little
hand in his and held it a moment, while he said, with
a choking voice, "God bless you, Daisy. I shall not
forgot your kindness to my poor Julia, and if you
should need,—but no, that is too horrible to think of;
may God spare you that. Good-bye."

And that was all that passed between him and
Daisy with regard to the haunting dread which sent
her in a few days to her own house in New York,
where, if the thing she feared came upon her, she
would at least be at home and know she was not endangering
the lives of others. But God was good to
her, and though there was a slight fever with darting
pains in her back and a film before her eyes, it
amounted to nothing worse, and might have been the
result of fatigue and over-excitement; and when, at
Christmas time, yielding to the importunities of her
little namesake, there was a picture of herself in the
box sent to Cuylerville, the face which Guy scanned
even more eagerly than his daughter, was as smooth
and fair and beautiful as when he saw it at Saratoga,
bending over his dying wife.




CHAPTER XIII.—DAISY'S JOURNAL.
==============================

.. class:: right

:small-caps:`New York`, June 14, 18—.

To-morrow I am to take my old name of
Thornton again, and be Guy's wife once
more. Nor does it seem strange at all
that I should do so, for I have never thought of myself
as not belonging to him, even when I knew he
was married to another. And yet when that dreadful
night at Saratoga I went to Julia's room, there was in
my heart no thought of this which has come to me.
I only wished to care for her and be a help to Guy.
I did not think of her dying, and after she was dead,
there was not a thought of the future in my mind
until little Daisy put it there by asking if I would be
her mamma. Then I seemed to see it all, and expected
it up to the very day, six weeks ago, when Guy
wrote to me, "Daisy, I want you. Will you come to
me again as my wife?"

I was not surprised. I knew he would say it sometime,
and I replied at once, "Yes, Guy, I will."

He has been here since, and we have talked it
over, all the past when I made him so unhappy, and
when I, too, was so wretched, though I did not say
much about that, or tell him of the dull, heavy, gnawing
pain which, sleeping or waking, I carried with me
so long, and only lost when I began to live for others.
I did speak of the letter, and said I had loved him
ever since I wrote it, and that his marrying Julia
made no difference, and then I told him of poor Tom,
and what I said to him, not from love but from a
sense of duty, and when I told him how Tom would
not take me at my word, he held me close to him and
said, "I am glad he did not, my darling, for then you
would never have been mine."

I think we both wept over those two graves, one
far off in sunny France, the other in Saratoga, and
both felt how sad it was that they must be made in
order to bring us together. Poor Julia! She was a
noble woman, and Guy did love her. He told me so,
and I am glad of it. I mean to try to be like her in
those things wherein she excelled me.

We are going straight to Cuylerville to the house
where I never was but once, and that on the night
when Guy was sick and Miss Frances made me go
back in the thunder and rain. She is sorry for that,
for she told me so in the long, kind letter she wrote,
calling me her little sister and telling me how glad
she is to have me back once more. Accidentally I
heard Elmwood was for sale, and without letting Guy
know I bought it, and sent him the deed, and we are
going to make it the most attractive place in the
county.

It will be our summer home, but in the winter my
place is here in New York with my people, who
would starve and freeze without me. Guy has agreed
to that and will be a great help to me. He need
never work any more unless he chooses to do so, for
my agent says I am a millionaire, thanks to poor Tom,
who gave me his gold mine and his interest in that
railroad. And for Guy's sake I am glad, and for his
children, the precious darlings; how much I love
them already, and how kind I mean to be to them
both for Julia's sake and Guy's. Hush! That's his
ring, and there's his voice in the hall asking for Miss
McDonald, and so for the last time I write that name,
and sign myself

.. class:: right

:small-caps:`Margaret McDonald`.

----

.. class:: center

*Extracts from Miss Frances Thornton's Diary.*

.. class:: right

:small-caps:`Elmwood`, June 15th, —.

I have been looking over an old journal, finished
and laid away long ago, and accidentally I stumbled
upon a date eleven years back. It was Guy's wedding
day then; it is his anniversary now, and as on that
June day years ago I worked among my flowers, so
have I been with them this morning, and as then
people from the Towers came into our beautiful
grounds, so they came to-day and praised our lovely
place and said there was no spot like it in all the
country round. But Julia was not with them. She
will never come to us again. Julia is dead, and her
grave is in Saratoga, for Guy dare not have her
moved, but he has erected a costly monument to her
memory, and the mound above her is like some bright
flower bed all the summer long, for he hires a man to
tend it, and goes twice each season to see that it is
kept as he wishes to have it. Julia is dead and Daisy
is here again at Elmwood, which she purchased with
her own money, and fitted up with every possible convenience
and luxury.

Guy is ten years younger than he used to be, and
we are all so happy with this little fairy, who has
expanded into a noble woman, and whom I love as I
never loved a living being before, Guy excepted, of
course. I never dreamed when I turned her out into
the rain that I should love her as I do, or that she was
capable of being what she is. I would not have her
changed in any one particular, and neither, I am sure,
would Guy, while the children fairly worship her, and
must sometimes be troublesome with their love and
their caresses.

It is just a year since she came back to us. We
were in the small house then, but Daisy's very presence
seemed to brighten and beautify it, until I was
almost sorry to leave it last April for this grand place
with all its splendor.

There was no wedding at all; that is, there were
no invited guests, but never had bride greater honor
at her bridal than our Daisy had, for the church where
the ceremony was performed, at a very early hour in
the morning, was literally crowded with the halt, the
lame, the maimed and the blind; the slum of New
York; gathered from every back street, and by-lane,
and gutter; Daisy's "people," as she calls them, who
came to see her married, and who, strangest of all,
brought with them a present for the bride; a beautiful
family Bible, golden clasped and bound, and costing
fifty dollars. Sandy McGraw presented it, and he
had written upon the fly leaf, "To the dearest friend
we ever had, we give this book, as a slight token of
how much we love her." Then followed, upon a sheet
of paper, the names of the donors and how much each
gave. Oh, how Daisy cried when she saw the *ten
cents*, and the *five cents*, and the *three cents*, and the
*one cent*, and knew it had all been earned and saved at
some personal sacrifice for her. I do believe she would
have kissed every one of them if Guy had permitted
it. She did kiss the children and shook every hard,
soiled hand there, and then Guy took her away and
brought her to our home, where she has been the
sweetest, merriest, happiest, little creature that ever a
man called wife, or a woman sister. She does leave
her things round a little, to be sure, and she is not
always ready for breakfast. I guess she never will
wholly overcome those habits, but I can put up with
them now better than I could once. Love makes a vast
difference in our estimate of others, and she could
scarcely ruffle me now, even if she kept breakfast waiting
every morning and left her clothes lying three
garments deep upon the floor. As for Guy,—but his
happiness is something I cannot describe. Nothing
can disturb his peace, which is as firm as the everlasting
hills. He does not caress her as much as he did
once, but his thoughtful care of her is wonderful, and
she is never long from his sight without his going to
seek her.

May God bless them and keep them always as they
are now, at peace with Him and all in all to each
other.


.. class:: center

THE END.
--------


.. class:: x-large

POPULAR NOVELS BY *MRS. MARY J. HOLMES.*

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All published uniform with this volume. Price $1.50
each. Sold everywhere, and sent *free*
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.. class:: small

 | BY
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.. _pg_end_line:

\*\*\* END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAISY THORNTON \*\*\*

.. backmatter::

.. toc-entry::
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