MISS MCDONALD

BY

MRS. MARY J. HOLMES

AUTHOR OF "THE LEIGHTON HOMESTEAD, " "MILLBANK; OR, ROGER IRVING'S WARD, ""MILDRED; OR, THE CHILD OF ADOPTION, " "EDITH LYLE'S SECRET, " "ETHELYN'SMISTAKE, " ETC. 

THE MERSHON COMPANYRAHWAY, N. J. NEW YORK

CONTENTS

I. EXTRACTS FROM MISS FRANCES THORNTON'S JOURNAL

II. EXTRACTS FROM GUY'S JOURNAL

III. EXTRACTS FROM DAISY'S JOURNAL

IV. AUTHOR'S STORY

V. THE DIVORCE

VI. EXTRACTS FROM DIARIES

VII. FIVE YEARS LATER

VIII. DAISY'S LETTER

IX. DAISY, TOM, AND THAT OTHER ONE

X. MISS MCDONALD

XI. AT SARATOGA

XII. IN THE SICK-ROOM

XIII. DAISY'S JOURNAL

MISS MCDONALD

CHAPTER I

EXTRACTS FROM MISS FRANCES THORNTON'S JOURNAL

ELMWOOD, June 15, 18--. 

I have been out among my flowers all the morning, digging, weeding, andtransplanting, and then stopping a little to rest. Such perfectsuccesses as my roses are this year, while my white lilies are thewonder of the town, and yet my heart was not with them to-day, and itwas nothing to me that those fine people staying at the Towers came intothe grounds while I was at work, "just to see and admire, " they said, adding that there was no place like Elmwood in all the town ofCuylerville. I know that, and Guy and I have been so happy here, and Iloved him so much, and never dreamed what was in store for me until itcame so suddenly and seemed like a heavy blow. 

Why did he want to get married, when he has lived to be thirty yearsold, without a care of any kind, and with money enough to allow him toindulge his taste for books, and pictures, and travel, and is respectedby everybody, looked up to as the first man in town, and petted andcared for by me as few brothers have ever been petted and cared for;why, I say, did he want a change, and, if he must be married, why needhe take a child of sixteen, whom he has only known since Christmas, andwhose sole recommendation, so far as I can learn, is her pretty face?

Daisy McDonald is her name, and she lives in Indianapolis, where herfather is a poor lawyer, and Guy met her last winter in Chicago and fellin love at once, and made two or three journeys West on "importantbusiness, " he said, and then, some time in May, told me he was going tobring me a sister, the sweetest little creature, with such beautifulblue eyes and wonderful hair. I was sure to love her, he said, and whenI suggested that she was very young, he replied that her youth was inher favor, as he could more easily mold her to the Thornton pattern. 

Little he knows about girls, but then he was perfectly infatuated andblind to everything but Daisy's eyes, and hair, and voice, which is sosweet and winning that it will _speak_ for her at once; and he asked meto see to the furnishing of the rooms on the west side of the house, twowhich communicate with his own private library, where he spends a greatdeal of time with his books and writing. The room adjoining this hewould have for Daisy's boudoir or parlor, where she could sit when hewas occupied and she wished to be near him. This he would have fitted upin blue, as she had expressed a wish to that effect, and he said noexpense 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 inNew York hunting for a carpet of the desirable shade, which should beright both in texture and design. 

Guy was exceedingly particular, and developed a wonderful proclivity tofind fault with everything I admired. Nothing was quite the thing forDaisy until at last a manufacturer offered to get one up which shouldsuit, and so the carpet question was happily ended for the time being. Then came the furniture, and unlimited orders were given to theupholsterer to do his best, and matters were progressing finely whenorder number two came from the little lady, who was sorry to seem sofickle, but mamma, whose taste was perfect, had decided against allblue, 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 heshould 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 woulddescribe exactly what she meant, and be so entirely unique, and lovely, and recherché. 

Guy never swears, and seldom uses slang of any kind, but this was alittle too much, and with a most rueful expression of countenance heasked me "what in thunder I supposed a hint of a tint of a shade of drabcould be. "

I could not enlighten him, and we finally concluded to leave it to theupholsterer, to whom Guy telegraphed in hot haste, bidding him hunt NewYork over for the desired shade. Where he found it I never knew, butfind it he did, or something approximating to it, a faded, washed-outcolor, which seemed a cross between wood-ashes and pale skim milk. Asample was sent up for Guy's approval, and then the work commencedagain, when order number three came in one of those dainty littlebillets which used to make Guy's face radiant with happiness. Daisy hadchanged her mind again and gone back to the blue, which she alwayspreferred as most becoming to her complexion. 

Guy did not say a single word, but he took the next train for New Yorkand stayed there till the furniture was done and packed for Cuylerville. As I did not know where he was stopping, I could not forward him twolittle missives which came during his absence, and which bore theIndianapolis post-mark. I suspect he had a design in keeping his hotelfrom 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 hisbride, and Julia Hamilton, who was then at the Towers, helped me arrangethe room, which is a perfect little gem and cannot fail to please, I amsure. I wonder Guy never fancied Julia Hamilton. Oh, if he only had doneso I should not have as many misgivings as I now have nor dread thefuture so much. Julia is sensible and twenty years old, and lives inBoston, and comes of a good family, and is every way suitable; but whendid a man ever choose the woman whom his sister thought suitable forhim? And Guy is like other men, and this is his wedding day; and after atrip to Montreal, and Quebec, and Boston, and New York, and Saratoga, they are coming home, and I am to give a grand reception and thensubside, I suppose, into the position of the "old maid sister who willbe dreadfully in the way. "

SEPTEMBER 15, 18--. 

Just three months since I opened my Journal, and, on glancing over whatI wrote on Guy's wedding day, I find that in one respect at least I wasunjust to the little creature who is now my sister and calls me MissFrances. Not by a word or look has she shown the least inclination toassume the position of mistress of the house, nor does she seem to thinkme at all in the way; but that she considers me quite an antediluvian Iam certain, for, in speaking of something which happened in 1820, sheasked if I remembered it! And I only three years older than Guy! Butthen she once called him a dear old grandfatherly man, and thought it agood 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, sorelyagainst her wishes, as I heard from the Porters, who were at the samehotel, and who have told me what a sensation she created, and how muchattention she received. Everybody flattered her, and one evening whenthere was to be a hop at Congress Hall, she received twenty bouquetsfrom as many different admirers, each of whom asked her hand for thefirst dance. They had ascertained that Guy was not a disciple ofTerpsichore, though I understand he did try some of the square dances, with poor success, I imagine, for Lucy Porter laughed when she told meof it; and I do not wonder, for my grave, scholarly Guy must be as muchout of place in a ball room as his little, airy doll of a wife is in herplace when there. I can understand just how she enjoyed it all, and howshe hated to come home, for she did not then know the kind of home shewas coming to. 

It was glorious weather for August, and a rain of the previous day hadwashed all the flowers and shrubs, and freshened up the grass on thelawn, which was just like a piece of velvet, while everything aroundElmwood seemed to laugh in the warm afternoon sunshine as the carriagecame up to the door. Eight trunks, two hat-boxes, and a guitar-case hadcome in the morning, and were waiting the arrival of their owner, whoseface looked eagerly out at the house and its surroundings, and, itseemed to me, did not light up as much as it should have done under thecircumstances. 

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

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

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

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

"Her waiting maid, whom we found in Boston, " Guy explained when we werealone. "She is so young and helpless, and wanted one so badly, that Iconcluded to humor her for a time, especially as I had not the mostremote idea how to pin on those wonderful fixings which she wears. It isastonishing how many things it takes to make up the _tout ensemble_ of afashionable woman, " Guy said, and I thought he glanced a littlecuriously at my plain cambric wrapper and smooth hair. 

Indeed he has taken it upon himself to criticise me somewhat! thinks Iam too slim, as he expresses it, and that my head might be improved ifit 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 yetZillah spends hours over it. She--that is, Daisy--was pleased with herboudoir, and gave vent to sundry exclamations of delight when sheentered it and skipped around like the child she is, and said she was soglad it was blue instead of that indescribable drab, and that room isalmost the only thing she has expressed an opinion about since she hasbeen 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 shouldsay that she had expected a great deal more grandeur than she finds. Atall events, she takes the things which I think very nice and evenelegant as a matter of course, and if we were to set up a style ofliving equal to that of the Queen's household I do believe she would actas if she had been accustomed to it all her life; or, at least, that itwas what she had a right to expect. I know she imagines Guy a great dealricher than he is; and that reminds me of something which troubles me. 

Guy has given his name to Dick Trevylian for one hundred thousanddollars. To be sure, it is only for three months, and Dick is worththree times that amount, and an old friend and every way reliable andhonest. And still I did not want Guy to sign. I wonder why it is thatwomen will always jump at a conclusion without any apparent reason. Ofcourse, I could not explain it, but when Guy told me what he was goingto do, I felt in an instant as if he would have it all to pay and toldhim so, but he only laughed at me and called me nervous and fidgety, andsaid a friend was good for nothing if he could not lend a helping handoccasionally. Perhaps that is true, but I was uneasy, and shall be gladwhen the time is up and the paper canceled. 

Our expenses since Daisy came are double what they were before, and ifwe 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 togrow more and more infatuated every day. "She is such a sweet-tempered, affectionate little puss, " he says; and I admit to myself that she issweet-tempered, and that nothing ruffles her, but about the affectionatepart I am not so certain. Guy would pet her and caress her all the timeif she would let him, but she won't. 

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

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

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

"Don't wait breakfast for me, please, " she says, when she has beencalled for the third or fourth time, and if she can get us to sit downwithout her she seems to think it all right, and that she can dawdle asmuch as she likes. 

I wonder that it never occurs to her that to keep the breakfast tableround, as we must, makes the girls cross and upsets the kitchengenerally. I hinted as much to her once when the table stood till teno'clock, and she only opened her great blue eyes wonderingly, and saidmamma had spoiled her, but she would try and do better, and she badeZillah call her at five the next morning, and Zillah called her, andthen she was a half-hour late. Guy doesn't like that, and he lookeddaggers on the night of the reception, when the guests began to arrivebefore she was dressed! And she commenced her toilet, too, at threeo'clock! But she was wondrously beautiful in her bridal robes, and tookall hearts by storm. She is perfectly at home in society, and knows justwhat to do and say so long as the conversation keeps in the fashionableround of chit-chat, but when it drifts into deeper channels she issilent at once, or only answers in monosyllables. I believe she is agood French scholar, and she plays and sings tolerably well, and readsthe 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 sympathywith his favorite studies and authors he is terribly mistaken. 

And yet, as I write all this, my conscience gives me sundry littlepricks as if I were wronging her, for in spite of her faults I like her, and like to watch her flitting through the house and grounds like thelittle fairy she is, and I hope the marriage may turn out well, and thatshe will improve with age, and not make so heavy drafts on my brother'spurse. 

CHAPTER II

EXTRACTS FROM GUY'S JOURNAL

SEPTEMBER 20, 18--. 

Three months married. Three months with Daisy all to myself, and yet notexactly to myself either, for except I go after her I confess she doesnot often come to me, unless it is just as I have shut myself up in myroom, thinking to have a quiet hour with my books. Then she generallyappears, and wants me to ride with her, or play croquet, or see whichdress is most becoming, and I always submit and obey her as if I werethe child instead of herself. 

She is young, and I almost wonder her mother allowed her to marry. Fanhints that they were mercenary, but if they were they concealed the factwonderfully well, and made me think it a great sacrifice on their partto give me Daisy. And so it was; such a lovely little darling, and sobeautiful. What a sensation she created at Saratoga, and still I wasglad to get away, for I did not like some things which were done there. I did not like so many young men around her, nor her dancing thoseabominable round dances which she seemed to enjoy so much. "Squaredances were poky, " she said, even after I tried them with her for thesake of keeping her out of that vile John Britton's arms. I have a fancythat I made a spectacle of myself, hopping about like a magpie, butDaisy said "I did beautifully, " though she cried because I put my footon her lace flounce and tore it, and I noticed she ever after had somegood reason why I should not dance again. "It was too hard work for me;I was too big, " 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 Tomwho wanted Daisy so badly and who, because she refused him, went off toSouth America. I trust he will stay there. Not that I am or could bejealous of Daisy, but it is better for cousins like Tom to keep away. 

Daisy is very happy here, though she is not quite so enthusiastic overthe place as I supposed she would be, knowing how she lived at home. Well enough, it is true, and the McDonalds are intensely respectable, soshe says; but her father's practice cannot bring him over two thousand ayear, and the small brown house they live in, with only a grass plot inthe rear and at the side, is not to be compared with Elmwood, which is afine old place, everyone admits. It has come out gradually that shethought the house was brick and had a tower and billiard room, and thatwe kept more servants, and had a fishpond on the premises, and velvetcarpets all over the house. 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 isa new revelation to her, and puzzles her amazingly. She would have beenglad if I had married Julia Hamilton of Boston; but those Boston girlsare too strong-minded and positive to suit me. Julia is nice, it istrue, and pretty and highly educated, and Fan says she has brains andwould make a splendid wife. As Fan had never seen Daisy she did not, ofcourse, mean to hint that she had not brains, but I suspect even now shewould be better pleased if Julia were here, but I should not. Julia isself-reliant; Daisy is not. Julia has opinions of her own and assertsthem, too; Daisy does not. Julia can sew and run a machine; Daisycannot. Julia gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night; Daisydoes neither. Nobody ever waits for Julia; everybody waits for Daisy. Julia reads scientific works and dotes on metaphysics; Daisy does notknow 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 theBoston women like Julia with brains!

And yet I sometimes wish she did care for books, and was more interestedin what interests me. I have tried reading aloud to her an hour everyevening, but she generally goes to sleep or steals up behind me to lookover my shoulder and see how near I am to the end of the chapter, andwhen I reach it she says: "Excuse me, but I have just thought ofsomething 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 endedfor that time, for I notice she never returns. The dress is of moreimportance than the book, and I find her at ten or eleven trying todecide whether black or white or blue is most becoming to her. PoorDaisy! I fear she had no proper training at home. Indeed, she told methe other day that from her earliest recollection she had been taughtthat the main object of her life was to marry young and to marry money. Of course she did not mean anything or know how it sounded, but I wouldrather she had not said it, even though she had refused a millionairefor me, who can hardly be called rich as riches are rated these days. IfDick Trevylian should fail to meet his payment I should be very poor, and then what would become of Daisy, to whom the luxuries which moneybuys are so necessary?

(Here followed several other entries in the journal, consisting mostlyof rhapsodies on Daisy, and then came the following:)

DECEMBER 15, 18--. 

Dick has failed to meet his payment, and that after having borrowed ofme twenty thousand more! Is he a villain, and did he know all the timethat I was ruining myself? I cannot think so when I remember that lookon his face as he told me about it and swore to me solemnly that up tothe very last he fully expected relief from England, where he thought hehad a fortune. 

"If I live I will pay you some time, " he said; but that does not help menow. I am a ruined man. Elmwood must be sold, and I must work to earn mydaily 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, butshe went to bed and cried for one whole day. I am so glad I settled thatten thousand on her when we were married. No one can touch that, and Itold her so; but she did not say a word or seem to know what I meant. Talking or expressing her opinion was never in her line, and she has notof her own accord spoken with me on the subject, and when I try to talkwith her about our future she shudders and cries, and says, "Pleasedon't! I can't bear it. I want to go home to mother!"

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

One thing Daisy said, which hurt me cruelly, and that was: "If I mustmarry poor, I might as well have married Cousin Tom, who wanted me sobadly!" To do her justice, however, she added immediately: "But I likeyou the best. "

I am glad she said that. It will be something to remember when she isgone, or rather when I return without her, as I am going to Indianapoliswith her, and then back to the dreary business of seeing what I haveleft and what I can do. I have an offer for the house, and shall sell atonce; but where my home will be next, I do not know, neither would Icare so much if it were not for Daisy--poor little Daisy!--who thoughtshe had married a rich man. The only tears I have shed over my lostfortune were for her. Oh, Daisy, Daisy!

CHAPTER III

EXTRACTS FROM DAISY'S JOURNAL

ELMWOOD, December 20, 18--. 

Daisy McDonald Thornton's journal, presented by my husband, Mr. GuyThornton, who wishes me to write something in it every day; and when Iasked him what I should write, he said: "Your thoughts, and opinions, and experiences. It will be pleasant for you some time to look back uponyour early married life and see what progress you have made since then, and will help you to recall incidents you would otherwise forget. Ajournal 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 afriend. "

That is what Guy said, and I wrote it right down to copy into the bookas a kind of preface or introduction. I am not much pleased with havingto keep a journal, and maybe I shall have Zillah keep it for me. I don'tcare to fix things in my mind. I don't like things fixed, anyway. I'drather they would be round loose, as they surely would, if I had notZillah to pick them up. She is a treasure, and it is almost worth beingmarried to have a waiting maid--and that reminds me that I may as wellbegin back at the time when I was not married, and did not want to be, if only we had not been so poor, and obliged to make so many shifts toseem richer than we were. 

My maiden name was Margaret McDonald, and I am seventeen next New Year'sDay. My father is of Scotch descent, and a lawyer; my mother was aBarnard, from New Orleans, and has the best blood of the two. I am anonly child, and very handsome--so everybody says--and I should know itif they did not say it, for can't I see myself in the glass! And still Ireally do not care so much for my good looks except as they serve toattain the end for which father says I was born. 

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

I must learn to keep my mouth shut, father said, and not tell all Iknew; 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 whetherfavorable or otherwise. 

I do not believe I am deceitful, though all my life I have seen myparents try to seem what they are not; that is, try to seem like richpeople, when sometimes father's practice brought him only a few hundredsa year, and there was mother and myself and Tom to support. Tom is mycousin--Tom McDonald--who lived with us and fell in love with me, thoughI never tried to make him. I liked him ever so much, though he used totease me horribly, 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;but still I liked him, for with all his teasing he had a great, kind, unselfish heart, and I shall never forget that look on his face when Itold him I could not be his wife. I did not like him as he liked me, andI did not want to be married anyway, and if I did marry it must be tosome rich man. That was in Chicago, and the night before he started forSouth America, where he was going to make his fortune, and he wanted meto promise to wait for him, and said no one would ever love me as wellas 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, andnight, and all the time. It is a good deal to ask of a woman, and I toldhim 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 whereTom's mother died. Poor Tom! I gave him a lock of my hair and let himkiss me twice, and then he went away, and after that old Judge Burtonoffered himself and his million to me; but I could not endure his baldhead a week, and I told him no, and when father seemed sorry and said Imissed it, I told him I would not sell myself for gold alone. I'd runaway first and go after Tom. Then Guy Thornton came, and--and--well, hetook me by storm, and I liked him better than anyone I ever saw, and Imarried him. Everybody said he was rich, and father was satisfied andgave his consent, and bought be a most elaborate trousseau. I wonderedthen where the money came from. Now I know that Tom sent it. He has beenvery successful with his mine, and in a letter to father sent me a checkfor fifteen hundred dollars. Father would not tell me that, but motherdid, 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 andwrote, "I am working like an ox for Daisy. " Poor, poor Tom!

OCTOBER 1, 18--. 

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

I have had a letter from him. He had just heard of my marriage, and onlysaid: "God bless you, my darling little Daisy, and may you be veryhappy. "

I burned the letter up and cried myself into a headache. I wish peoplewould not love me so hard. I do not deserve it. 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 anyone else. I like Guy and believehim to be the best man in the world, and I would rather he kissed methan Tom, but do not want anybody to kiss me; and Guy is soaffectionate, and his great hands are so hot, and muss my fluted dressesso terribly. 

I guess I don't like to be married anyway. If one only could have thehouse, and the money, and the nice things without the man! That'swicked, of course, when Guy is so kind and loves me so much. I wish hedidn't, but I would not for the world let him know how I feel. I didtell him that I was not the wife he ought to have, but he would notbelieve me, and father was anxious, and so I married him, meaning to dothe best I could. It was splendid at Saratoga, only Guy danced soridiculously and would not let me waltz with those young men. As if Icared a straw for them or any other man besides Guy and Tom!

It is pleasant here at Elmwood, only the house is not as grand as Isupposed, and there are not as many servants, and the family carriage isawful poky. 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 raginghousekeepers, who act as if they wanted to make the bed before you areup, and eat breakfast before it is ready. I don't like to get up in themorning anyway, and I don't like to hurry, and I am always behind, andkeeping somebody waiting, and that disturbs the people here very much. Miss Frances seems really cross sometimes, and even Guy looks sober anddisturbed when he has waited for me half an hour. I guess I must try anddo better, for both Guy and Miss Frances are as good as they can be, butthen I am not one bit like them, and have never been accustomed toanything like order and regularity. At home things came round any time, and I came with them, and that suited me better than this being married, a great deal, only now I have a kind of settled feeling, and am Mrs. GuyThornton, and Guy is good-looking, and highly esteemed, and verylearned, and I can see that the young ladies in the neighborhood envy mefor being his wife. I wonder who is that Julia Hamilton Miss Francestalks about so much, and why Guy did not marry her instead of me. She, too, is very learned and gets up in the morning and flies round andreads scientific articles in the _Westminster Review_. I asked Guy oncewhy he did not marry her instead of a little goose like me, and he saidhe liked the little goose the best, and then kissed me, and crumpled mywhite dress all up. Poor Guy! I wish I did love him as well as he doesme, but it's not in me to love any man!

DECEMBER 20, 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 weare to move into a stuffy little house without Zillah, and with only onegirl. It is too dreadful to think about, and I was sick for a week afterGuy told me of it. I might as well have married Tom, only I like Guy thebest. He looks so sorry and sad that I sometimes forget myself to pityhim. I am going home to mother for a long, long time--all winter, maybe--and I shall enjoy it so much. Guy says I have ten thousanddollars of my own, and the interest on that will buy my dresses, Iguess, and get something for Miss Frances, too. She is a noble woman, and tries to bear up so brave. She says they will keep the furniture ofmy blue room for me, if I want it; and I do, and I mean to have Guysend it to Indianapolis, if he will. Oh, mother, I am so glad I amcoming back, and I almost wish--no, I don't, either. I like Guy, only Idon't like being married!

CHAPTER IV

AUTHOR'S STORY

Reader, Guy Thornton was not a fool, and Daisy was not a fool, though Iadmit they have thus far appeared to disadvantage. Both had made a greatmistake; Guy in marrying a child whose mind was unformed, and Daisy inmarrying at all, when her whole nature was in revolt against matrimony. But married they are, and Guy has failed and Daisy is going home, andthe New Year's morning, when she was to have received Guy's gift of thephaeton 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 the father, Mr. McDonald, the news of his son-in-law's failure felllike a thunderbolt and affected him more than it did Daisy. Shrewd, ambitious, and scheming, he had for years planned for his daughter amoneyed marriage, and now she was returned upon his hands for anindefinite time, with her naturally luxurious tastes intensified byrecent indulgence, and her husband a ruined man. It was not a pleasantpicture to contemplate, and Mr. McDonald's face was cloudy andthoughtful for many days until a letter from Tom turned his thoughtsinto a new channel and sent him with fresh avidity to certain points oflaw with which he had of late years been familiar. If there was one partof his profession in which he excelled more than another it was in thedivorce cases which had made Indiana so notorious. Squire McDonald, ashe was called, was well known to that class of people who, utterlyignoring God's command, seek to free themselves from the bonds whichonce were so pleasant to wear, and now, as he sat alone in his officewith Tom's letter in his hand, and read how rapidly that young man wasgetting rich, there came into his mind a plan, the very thought of whichwould have made Guy Thornton shudder with horror and disgust. 

Daisy had not been altogether satisfied with her brief married life, andit would be very easy to make her more dissatisfied, especially as thehome to which she would return must necessarily be very different fromElmwood, Tom was destined to be a millionaire. There was no doubt ofthat, and once in the family he could be molded and managed as the wilyMcDonald had never been able to mold or manage Guy. But everythingpertaining to Tom must be kept carefully out of sight, for the man knewhis daughter would never lend herself to such a diabolical scheme asthat 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 wasdoing, she found herself the heroine of a divorce suit, founded reallyupon nothing but a general dissatisfaction with married life and a wishto be free from it. Something there was about incompatibility oftemperament and uncongeniality, and all that kind of thing which wickedmen and women parade before the world when weary of the tie which Godhas distinctly 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 lostfortune, and to fit up a pleasant home for the childish wife who wasdrifting away from him. He had missed her so much at first, even whilehe felt it a relief to have her gone just when his business mattersneeded all his time and thought. 

It was some comfort, too, to write to her, but not much to receive herletters, for Daisy did not excel in epistolary composition, and after afew weeks her letters were short and far apart, and, as Guy thought, constrained and studied in their tone, and when, after she had beenabsent from him for three months or more his longing to see her was sogreat that he decided upon a visit of a few days to the West, andapprised 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 deferhis journey, as Daisy was visiting some friends and would be absent foran indefinite length of time. There was but one more letter from her andthat was dated at Vincennes, and merely said that she was well, and Guymust 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 shoulddevote himself to his business than bother about her. The letter wassigned, "Hastily, Daisy, " and Guy read it over many times with a pang inhis heart he could not define. 

But he had no suspicion of the terrible blow in store for him, and wenton planning for her comfort just the same; and when at last Elmwood wassold and he could no longer stay there, he hired a more expensive housethan he could afford, because he thought Daisy would like it better, andthen, with his sister Fan, set himself to the pleasant task of fittingit up for Daisy. There was a blue room with a bay window just as therehad been in Elmwood, only it was not so pretentious and large. But itwas very pleasant and had a door opening out upon what Guy meant shouldbe a flower garden in the summer, and though he missed his little wifesadly and longed so much at times for a sight of her beautiful face andthe sound of her sweet voice, he put all thought of himself aside andsaid he would not bring her back until the May flowers were in blossomand the young grass bright and green by the blue room door. 

"She will have a better impression of her new home then, " he said toFan; "and I want her to be happy here and not feel the change tookeenly. "

Julia Hamilton chanced those days to be in town, and as she was veryintimate with Miss Thornton the two were a great deal together, and itthus came about that Julia was often at the brown cottage and helped tosettle the blue room for Daisy. 

"If it were only you who was to occupy it, " Frances said to her onemorning when they had been reading together for an hour or more in theroom they both thought so pleasant. "I like Daisy, but somehow she seemsso 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'smarvelous beauty and winning ways, and hoped Julia would know and loveher ere long, and possibly do her good. 

It so happened that Guy was sometimes present at these readings, enjoying them so much that there insensibly crept into his heart a wishthat Daisy was more like the Boston girl whom he had mentally termedstrong-minded. 

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

And so at last, when the house was settled and the early spring flowerswere in bloom, Guy started westward for his wife. He had not seen hernow for months, and it was more than two weeks since he had heard fromher, and his heart beat high with joyful anticipation as he thought justhow she would look when she came to him, shyly and coyly, as she alwaysdid, with that droop in her eyelids and that pink flush in her cheeks. He would chide her a little at first, he said, for having been so poor acorrespondent, especially of late, and after that he would love her somuch, and shield her so tenderly from every want or care, that sheshould never feel the difference in his fortune. 

Poor Guy--he little dreamed what was in store for him just inside thedoor where he stood ringing one morning early in May, and which, when atlast it was opened, shut in a very different man from the one who wentthrough it three hours later, benumbed and half-crazed with bewildermentand surprise. 

CHAPTER V

THE DIVORCE

He had expected to meet Daisy in the hall, but she was nowhere in sight, and she who appeared in response to the card he sent up seemed confusedand unnatural to such a degree that Guy asked in some alarm if anythinghad 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 thatmorning, and thought she had better not come down. They had not expectedhim so soon, she continued, and she regretted exceedingly that herhusband was not there, but she had sent for him, and hoped he would comeimmediately. Had Mr. Thornton been to breakfast?

Yes, he had, and he did not understand at all what she meant; if Daisycould not come to him he must go to her, he said, and he started for thedoor, when Mrs. McDonald sprang forward, and, laying her hand on hisarm, held him back, saying:

"Wait, Mr. Thornton; wait till husband comes--to tell you--"

"Tell me what?" Guy demanded of her, feeling sure now that something hadbefallen Daisy. 

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

But her efforts were vain, for, shaking off her grasp, Guy opened thehall 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 waspassing between her mother and Guy, she had stolen downstairs to listen, and had reached the door just as Guy opened it so suddenly. 

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

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

"Oh, Guy, Guy, you can't--you mustn't. You must never kiss me again orlove me any more, because I am--I am not--oh, Guy, I wish you had neverseen me; I am so sorry, too. I did like you. I--I--Guy--Guy--I ain'tyour wife any more! Father has got a divorce!"

She whispered the last words, and then, affrighted at the expression ofGuy's face, fled half-way up the stairs, where she stood looking downupon him, while, with a face as white as ashes, he, too, stood gazing ather 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 hefelt that something horrible had come between him and Daisy--that insome way she was as much lost to him as if he had found her coffined forthe grave, and the suddenness of the blow took from him for a moment hispowers of speech, and he still stood looking at her when the street dooropened and a new actor appeared upon the scene in the person of Mr. McDonald, who had hastened home in obedience to the message from hiswife. 

It was a principle of Mr. McDonald never to lose his presence of mind orhis temper, or the smooth, low tone of voice he had cultivated years agoand practiced since with so good effect. And now, though he understoodthe state of matters at once and knew that Guy had heard the worst, hedid not seem ruffled in the slightest degree, and his voice was just askind and sweet as ever as he bade Guy good-morning and advanced to shakehis hand. But Guy would not take it. He had always disliked anddistrusted Mr. McDonald, and he felt intuitively that whatever harm hadbefallen him had come through the oily-tongued, insinuating man whostood smilingly before him. With a gesture of disgust he turned awayfrom the offered hand, and in a voice husky with suppressed excitement, asked:

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

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

"Oh, Guy, don't feel so badly. Tell him, father, I did not do it, " Daisycried, as she stood leaning over the stair-rail and looking down at thewretched 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 toyou what seems so mysterious now. "

They went together into the little parlor, and for half an hour or morethe sound of their voices was distinctly heard as Mr. McDonald tried toexplain what there really was no explanation or excuse for. Daisy wasnot contented at Elmwood, and though she complained of nothing, she wasnot happy as a married woman, and was glad to be free again. That wasall, and Guy understood at last that Daisy was his no longer; that thelaw which was a disgrace to the State in which it existed had divorcedhim from his wife without his knowledge or consent, and for no otherreason than incompatibility of temperament, and a desire on Daisy's partto be free from the marriage tie. Not a word had been said of Guy'saltered fortunes, but he felt that his comparative poverty was reallythe cause of this great wrong, and for a few moments resentment andindignation prevailed over every other feeling; then, when he rememberedthe little blue-eyed, innocent-faced girl whom he had loved so much andthought so good and true, he laid his head upon the sofa arm and groanedbitterly, while the man who had ruined him sat coolly by, citing to himmany similar cases where divorces had been procured without theknowledge of the absent party. It was a common--a very common thing, hesaid, and reflected no disgrace upon either party where there was nocriminal charge. Daisy was too young and childish anyway, and ought notto have been married for several years, and it was really quite as mucha favor to Guy as a wrong. He was free again--free to marry if heliked--he had taken care to see to that, so--

"Stop!" Guy almost thundered out. "There is a point beyond which youshall not go. Be satisfied with taking Daisy from me, and do not insultme with talk of a second marriage. Had I found Daisy dead it would havehurt me less than this fearful wrong you have done. I say you, for Icharge it all to you. Daisy could have had no part in it, and I ask tosee her and hear from her own lips that she accepts the position inwhich you and your diabolical laws have placed her before I am willingto give her up. Call her, will you?"

"No, Mr. Thornton, " Mr. McDonald replied. "To see Daisy would be uselessand 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 actingthe 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 Guyentirely, and, clasping her in his arms, he wept passionately for amoment, while he tried to say:

"Oh, Daisy, my darling, tell me it is a horrid dream; tell me you arestill my wife, and go with me to the home I have tried to make sopleasant for your sake. It is not like Elmwood, but I will some timehave 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 fearfulbusiness, 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 youagain. This is your last chance with me. Reflect before you throw itaway. "

Guy's mood was changing a little, because of something he saw inDaisy'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. McDonaldsaid, while Daisy, still keeping her arms around Guy's neck, where shehad put them when he drew her to him, replied:

"Oh, Guy! I can't go with you now; but I shall like you always, and I'mso sorry for you. I never wanted to be married; but if I must, I'dbetter have married Tom, or that old Chicago man; they would not feel sobad, and I'd rather hurt them than you. "

The utter childishness of the remark roused Guy, and with a gesture ofimpatience, he put Daisy from him, and, rising to his feet, saidangrily:

"This, then is your decision, and I accept it; but, Daisy, if you havein you a spark of true womanhood you will some time be sorry for thisday's work; while you!" and he turned fiercely upon Mr. McDonald--"wordscannot express the contempt I feel for you; and know, too, that Iunderstand you fully, and am certain that were I the rich man I was whenyou gave your daughter to me, you would not have taken her away. But Iwill 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 thenadded: "Daisy was my wife. "

Then, without another word, he left the house, nor saw the white, frightened face which looked after him so wistfully until a turn in thestreet hid him from view. 

CHAPTER VI

EXTRACTS FROM DIARIES

_Extract 1st--Mr. McDonald's. _

MAY ----. 

Well, that matter is over, and I can't say I am sorry, for theexpression 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 coldlead. I never quite indorsed the man--first, because he was not as richas I would like Daisy's husband to be, and, second, because even if hehad been a millionaire it would have done me no good. That he did notmarry Daisy's family, he made me fully understand, and for any good hismoney did me, I was as poor after the marriage as before. Then he mustneeds lose all he had in that foolish way, and when I found that Daisywas not exceedingly in love with married life, it was natural that, asher father, I should take advantage of the laws of the State in which Ilive, especially as Tom is growing rich so fast. On the whole, I havedone a good thing. Daisy is free, with ten thousand dollars thatThornton settled on her, for, of course, I shall prevent her giving thatback, as she is determined to do, saying it is not hers, and she willnot keep it. It is hers, and she shall keep it, and Tom will be amillionaire if that gold mine proves as great a success as it seems nowto be, and I can manage Tom, and, as I said before, I've done a nicething after all. 

_Extract 2nd--Miss Thornton's. _

JUNE 30, 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 nightwhen he came back to us from the West, with a fearful look on his faceand a cruel stab in his heart. I say us, for Julia Hamilton has beenwith me all through the dreadful days and nights when I watched to seeGuy's life go out and know I was left alone. She was with me when I wasgetting ready for Daisy and waiting for Guy to bring her home--not toElmwood--that dear old place is sold and strangers walk the rooms I loveso well--but here to the brown cottage on the hill, which, if I hadnever had Elmwood, would seem so pleasant to me. 

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

And so I hoped and waited for her and Guy, and wondered I did not hearfrom him, 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 eveningset in cool, with a feeling of rain in the air, and I had a fire kindledin the parlor and in Daisy's room, for I remembered how she used tocrouch on the rug before the grate and watch the blaze floating up thechimney with all the eagerness of a child. Then, although it hurt mesorely, I went to Simpson, who bought our carriage, and asked that itmight be sent to the station so that Daisy should not feel thedifference at once. And Jerry, our old coachman, went with it and waitedthere just as Julia and I waited at home, for Julia had promised to staya few weeks and see what Daisy was like. 

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

"What it is, Guy, and where is Daisy?" I asked, as he staggered againstthe banister, where he leaned heavily. 

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

And still there is some good in her--some sense of right and wrong, aswas shown by a strange thing which happened when Guy was at the worst ofthe terrible fever which followed his coming home. I watched him day andnight, I would not even let Julia Hamilton share my vigils, and onenight when I was worn out with fatigue and anxiety I fell asleep uponthe lounge, where I threw myself for a moment. How long I slept I neverknew, but it must have been an hour or more, for the last thing Iremember was hearing the whistle of the Western train and the sighing ofthe wind, which sounded like rain, and when I awoke the rain was fallingheavily and the clock was striking twelve, which was an hour after thetrain was due. It was very quiet in the room, and darker than usual, forsomeone had shaded the lamp from my eyes as well as Guy's so that atfirst I did not see distinctly, but I had an impression that there was afigure sitting by Guy near the bed. Julia, most likely, I thought, and Icalled her by name, feeling my blood curdle in my veins and my heartstand still with something like fear when a voice I knew so well andnever expected to hear again, answered softly:

"It is not Julia. It's me!"

There was no faltering in her voice, no sound of apology. She spoke likeone who had a right there, and this it was which angered me and made melose my self-command. Starting to my feet, I confronted her where shesat in my chair, by Guy's bedside, with those queer blue eyes of hersfixed so questioningly upon me as if she wondered at my impertinence. 

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

"I was almost afraid, it was so dark when I left the train, and it keptthundering so, " she replied, mistaking my meaning altogether, "but therewas no conveyance at the station, and so I came on alone. I never knewGuy was sick. Is he very bad?"

Her perfect composure and utter ignoring of the past provoked me beyondendurance, and without stopping to think what I was doing, I seized herarm, and drawing her into an adjoining room, said, in a suppressedwhisper 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 youpresume to come here into his very room--you who are no wife of his, andno woman, either, to do what you have done. "

What more I said I do not remember. I only know Daisy put her hands toher 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 to-night--now, beforeGuy can possibly be harmed by your presence. Go back to the depot andtake the next train home. It is due in an hour. You have time to reachit. "

"But it's so dark, and it rains and thunders so, " she said, with ashudder, as a heavy peal shook the house and the rain beat against thewindows. 

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

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

Even then she did not move, but crouched in a corner of the roomfarthest from me, reminding me of my kitten when I try to drive it froma place where it has been permitted to play. As that will not understandmy 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 inher great, staring blue eyes, she said:

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

She spoke the word softly and hesitatingly, while a faint flush showedon 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, told him Iwas not so mean, and father kept the letter, and I did not know what Ishould do next till I was invited to visit Aunt Merriman in Detroit. Then I took the paper--the settlement, you know, from the box wherefather kept it and put it in my pocket; here it is--see, " and she drewout a document and held it toward me while she continued: "I started forDetroit under the care of a friend who stopped a few miles the otherside, so you see I was free to come here if I liked, and I did so, for Iwanted to see Guy and give him the paper, and tell him I'd never take acent of his money. I am sorry he is sick. I did not think he'd care somuch, and I don't know what to do with the paper unless I tear it up. Ibelieve 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 thenacross again, and scattered the four pieces on the floor. 

"Tell Guy, please, " she continued, "what I have done, and that I nevermeant to take it, after--after--that--you know--and that I did not carefor money only as father taught me I must have it, and that I am sorryhe ever saw me, and I never really wanted to be married and can't be hiswife again till I do. "

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

"I suppose I must go now if I would catch the train, " she said, movingtoward the door. "Good-by, Fanny. I am sorry I ever troubled you. "

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

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

"And who will go with you? It will be just as dark and rainy then, " shesaid; but she made no objection to my plan, and in less than fiveminutes Julia, who always slept in her dressing-gown so as to be readyfor any emergency, was sitting by Guy, and I was out in the dark nightwith Daisy and our watchdog Leo, who, at sight of his old playmate, hadleaped 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 mywaterproof around her and adjusted the hood over her flowing hair, andthought how beautiful she was, even in that disfiguring garb, and thenwe went on our way, the young creature clinging close to me as pealafter peal of thunder rolled over our heads, and gleams of lightning litup the inky sky. She did not speak to me, nor I to her, till the redlight on the track was in sight, and we knew the train was coming. Thenshe asked timidly. "Do you think Guy will die?"

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

I was 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 herquestion:

"But do you think he will die? If I thought he would I should wish todie, too. I like him, Miss Frances, better than anyone I ever saw; likehim now as well as I ever did, but I do not want to be his wife, noranybody's wife, and that is just the truth. I am sorry he ever saw meand loved me so well. Tell him that, Fanny. "

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

"Promise me solemnly that if you think he is surely going to die youwill let me know in time to see him once more. Promise--quick--and kissme 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 whenI saw the little figure go alone into the car which bore her swiftlyaway, 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 paperfrom 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. Therewas a telegram for me the next evening, dated at Detroit, and bearingsimply 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 itwas better that they should not, for Guy's life hung on a thread, andfor 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, andto-day, for the first time, I have a strong hope that I am not to beleft alone, and I thank Heaven for that hope, and feel as if I were atpeace with all the world, even with Daisy herself, from whom I haveheard nothing since that brief telegram. 

AUGUST 1, ----. 

The shadow of death has passed from our house, and I may almost say theshadow of sickness, too, for though Guy is still weak as a child andthin as a ghost, he is decidedly on the gain, and to-day I drove him outfor the third time, and felt from something he said that he wasbeginning 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 toocompletely for him to recover quite his old hopeful, happy manner, andthere is a look of age in his face which pains me to see. He knows Daisyhas been here, and why. I had to tell him all about it, and sooner, too, than I meant. Almost his first coherent question to me after his reasoncame back was:

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

So I told him, though I did not mean to, and showed him the bits ofpaper, and held his head on my bosom while he cried like a little child. How he loves her yet, and how glad he was to know that she was not asmercenary as it would at first seem. Not that her tearing up that paperwill make any difference about the money. She cannot give it to him, hesays, until she is of age, neither does he wish it at all, and he wouldnot take it from her; but he is glad to see her disposition in thematter; glad to have me think better of her than I did, and I am certainthat he is half expecting to hear from her every day and is disappointedthat he does not. He did not reproach me when I told him about turningher out in the rain; he only said:

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

Oh, the love a man will feel for a woman, let her be ever so unworthy. Icannot comprehend it. And why should I--an old maid like me, who neverloved anyone but Guy?

AUGUST 30, ----. 

In a roundabout way we have heard that Mr. McDonald is going away withhis wife and daughter. When the facts of the divorce were known theybrought him into such disgrace with the citizens of Indianapolis that hethought it best to leave for a time till the storm blows over, and sothey will go to South America, where there is a cousin Tom, who isgrowing rich very fast. I cannot help certain thoughts coming into mymind any more than I can help being glad that Daisy is going out of thecountry. Guy never mentions her now, and is getting to look and actquite like himself. If only he could forget her we might be very happyagain, 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 MissJulia Hamilton, of this city. "

Such was the notice which appeared in a daily Boston paper one lovelymorning in September five years after the last entry in Miss Thornton'sjournal. Guy had reached the point at last when he could put Daisy fromhis heart and take another in her place. He had never seen her or hearddirectly from her since the night she brought him the marriagesettlement and tore it in pieces, thinking thus to give it to him beyonda doubt. That this did not change the matter one whit he knew just as heknew she could not give him the ten thousand dollars settled upon heruntil she was of age. She was of age now, and had been for a year ormore, and, to say the truth, he had expected to hear from her when shewas twenty-one. To himself he had reasoned in this wise: Her father toldher that the tearing up that paper made no difference, that she waspowerless of herself to act until she was of age, so she will waitquietly till then before making another effort. And in his heart Guythought how he would not take a penny from her, but would insist uponher keeping it. Still he should respect her all the more for her senseof justice and generosity, he thought, and when her twenty-firstbirthday came and passed, and week after week went by, and brought nosign from Daisy, there was a pang in his heart and a look ofdisappointment on his face which did not pass away until October hungher gorgeous colors upon the hills of Cuylerville, and Julia Hamiltoncame to the Brown Cottage to spend a few weeks with his sister. 

From an independent, self-reliant, energetic girl of twenty-two Juliahad ripened into a noble and dignified woman of twenty-seven, with aquiet repose of manner which seemed to rest and quiet one, and whichtold insensibly on Guy, until at last he found himself dreading to haveher go and wishing to keep her with him always. The visit was lengthenedinto a month; and when in November he went with her to Boston he hadasked her to take Daisy's place, and she had said she would. Very freelythey had talked of the little golden-haired girl, and Julia told himwhat she had heard of her through a mutual acquaintance who had been onthe same vessel with the McDonalds when they returned from SouthAmerica. Cousin Tom was with them, a rich man then and a richer now, forhis gold mine and his railroad had made him almost a millionaire, and itwas currently reported and believed that Mr. McDonald designed him forhis daughter. They were abroad now, the McDonalds and Tom, who bore theexpenses of the party. Daisy, it was said, was even more beautiful thanin her early girlhood, and to her loveliness were added cultivation andrefinement of manner. She had had the best of teachers while in SouthAmerica, and was now continuing her studies abroad with a view tofurther improvement. All this Julia Hamilton told Guy, and then bade himthink again ere deciding to join her life with his. 

And Guy did think again, and his thoughts went across the sea after thebeautiful Daisy, and he tried to picture to himself what she must be, now that education and culture had set their seal upon her. But alwaysin the picture there was a dark background, where cousin Tom stoodsentinel with his bags of gold, and so, with a half-unconscious sigh forwhat "might have been, " Guy dug still deeper the grave where yearsbefore he had buried his love for Daisy, and to make the burial surethis time, so that there should be no future resurrection, he put overthe grave a head-stone on which were written a new hope and a new love, both of which centered in Julia Hamilton. And so they were engaged, andafter that there was no wavering on his part--no looking back to a pastwhich seemed like a happy dream from which there had been a horribleawaking. 

He loved Julia at first quietly and sensibly, and loved her more andmore as the winter and spring went by and brought the day when he stoodagain at the altar and for the second time took upon him the marriagevow. It was a very quiet wedding, with only a few friends present, andMiss Frances was the bridesmaid, in a gown of silver gray; but Julia'sface was bright with the certainty of a happiness long desired; and ifin Guy's heart there lingered the odor of other bridal flowers, witherednow and dead, and the memory of other marriage bells than those whichsent their music on the air that summer morning, and if a pair of sunnyblue eyes looked into his instead of Julia's darker ones, he made nosign, and his face wore an expression of perfect content as he took hissecond bride for better or worse, just as he once had taken littleDaisy. In her case it had proved all for the worse, but now there was asuitableness in the union which boded future happiness, and many ahearty wish for good was sent after the newly married pair, whosedestination was New York. 

It was nearly dark when they reached the hotel and quite dark beforedinner was over. Then Julia suddenly remembered that an old friend ofhers 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 bythe new name, so if you do not mind my leaving you a moment I'll go andfind her myself. "

Guy did not mind, and Julia went out and left him alone. Scarcely wasshe gone when he called to mind a letter which had been forwarded to himfrom Cuylerville, and which he had found awaiting him on his return fromthe church. Not thinking it of much consequence he had thrust it in hispocket and in the excitement forgotten it till now. He had dressed fordinner and worn his wedding coat, and he took the letter out and lookedat it a moment, and wondered whom it was from, as people ofttimes dowait and wonder, when breaking the seal would settle the wonder so soon. It was postmarked in New York, and felt heavy in his hand, and he openedit at last and found that the outer envelope inclosed another one onwhich his name and address were written in a handwriting once sofamiliar to him, and the sight of which made him start and breatheheavily for a moment as if the air had suddenly grown thick andburdensome. 

Daisy's handwriting! which he had never thought to see again; for afterhis engagement with Julia he had burned every vestige of acorrespondence it was sorrow now to remember. One by one, and with asteady hand, he had dropped Daisy's letters into the fire and watchedthem turning into ashes, and thought how like his love for her they werewhen nothing remained of them but the thin gray tissue his breath couldblow away. The four scraps of the marriage settlement which Daisy hadbrought him on that night of storm he kept, because they seemed toembody something good and noble in the girl; but the letters she hadwritten him were gone past recall, and he had thought himself cut loosefrom her forever--when, lo! there had come to him an awakening to thebitterness of the past in a letter from the once-loved wife, whosedelicate handwriting made him grow faint and sick for a moment as heheld the letter in his hand and read thereon:

"GUY THORNTON, ESQ. , Brown Cottage, Cuylerville, Mass. Politeness of Mr. Wilkes. "

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

Better, perhaps, had he done so--better for him, and better for the fondnew wife whose happiness was so perfect, and whose trust in his love sostrong. 

But he did not tear it up. He opened it and read--another chapter willtell us what he read. 

CHAPTER VIII

DAISY'S LETTER

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

"MAY 15, 18--. 

"DEAR, DEAR GUY:--I am all alone here in Rouen; not a personnear me who speaks English or knows a thing of Daisy Thornton as shewas, or as she is now, for I am Daisy Thornton here. I have taken theold 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 thereand am earning my own living for three reasons, two of which concerncousin Tom and one of which has to do with you and that miserablesettlement which has troubled me so much. I thought when I brought itback and tore it up that was the last of it, and did not know that by noact of mine could I give it to you until I was of age. Father missed it, of course, and I told him just the truth, and that I could never touch apenny of your money and I not your wife. He did not say a word, and Isupposed it was all right, and never dreamed that I was actually clothedand fed on the interest of that ten thousand dollars. Father would nottell me and you did not write. Why didn't you, Guy? I expected a letterso long, and went to the office so many times and cried a little tomyself, and said Guy has forgotten me. 

"Then we went to South Africa--father, mother, and I--went to live withTom. He wanted me before you did, you know, but I could not marry Tom. He is very rich now, and we lived with him; and then we all came toEurope and have traveled everywhere, and I have had teachers ineverything, 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, justto please you. Tom was as a brother--a dear, good big bear of a brotherwhom I loved as such, but nothing more. Even were you dead, I could notmarry Tom after knowing you; and I told him so when in Berlin he askedme for the sixth time to be his wife. I had to tell him something hardto make him understand, and when I saw how what I said hurt him cruellyand made him cry--because he was such a great, big, awkward, dear oldfellow, I put my arms around his neck and cried with him, and tried toexplain, and that made him ten times worse. Oh, if folks only would notlove me so it would save me so much sorrow. 

"You see, I tell you this because I want you to know exactly what I havebeen doing these five years, and that I have never thought of marryingTom or anybody. I did not think I could. I felt that if I belonged toanybody it was you, and I cannot have Tom; and father was very angry andtaunted me with living on Tom's money, which I did not know before, andhe accidentally let out about the marriage settlement, and that hurt meworse than the other. 

"Oh, Guy, how can I give it up? Surely there must be a way, now I am ofage. I was so humiliated about it, and after all that passed betweenfather and Tom and me I could not stay in Berlin and never be sure whosemoney was paying for my bread, and when I heard that Madame Lafarcade, aFrench lady, who had spent the winter in Berlin, was wanting an Englishgoverness for her children, I went to her, and, as the result, am hereat this beautiful country-seat, just out of the city, earning my ownliving and feeling so proud to do it; only, Guy, there is an ache in myheart, a heavy, throbbing pain which will not leave me day or night, andthis is how it came there. 

"Mother wrote that you were about to marry Miss Hamilton. Letters fromhome 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 amcoming back to you. For, Guy, I am--or rather, I have come, and a greatlove, such as I never felt before, fills me full almost to bursting. Ialways liked you, Guy; but when we were married I did not know what itwas to love--to feel my pulses quicken as they do just now at thought ofyou. If I had, how happy I could have made you, but I was a silly littlegirl, and married life was distasteful to me, and I was willing to befree, though always, way down in my heart, was something which protestedagainst it, and if you knew just how I was influenced and led oninsensibly to assent, you would not blame me so much. The word divorcehad an ugly sound to me, and I did not like it, and I have always feltas if bound to you just the same. It would not be right for me to marryTom, 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, withoutany fixed idea, perhaps, as to what I expected or hoped. But when Tomspoke the last time it came to me suddenly what I was keeping myselffor, and, just as a great body of water, when freed from its prisonwalls, rolls rapidly down a green meadow, so did a mighty love for youtake possession of me and permeate my whole being until every nervequivered for joy, and when Tom was gone I went away alone and cried morefor my new happiness, I am afraid, than for him, poor fellow. And yet Ipitied him, too; as I could not stay in Berlin after that I came away toearn money enough to take me back to you. For I am coming, or I wasbefore I heard that dreadful news which I cannot believe. 

"Is it true, Guy? Write and tell me it is not, and that you love mestill and want me back, or, if it in part is true, and you are engagedto Julia, show her this letter and ask her to give you up, even if it isthe very day before the wedding--for you are mine, and, sometimes, whenthe 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 Icould only lay my aching head in your lap once more I should never knowpain or weariness again. 

"Try me, Guy. I will be so good and loving and make you so happy--andyour 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, DAISY. 

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

"Again, lovingly. DAISY THORNTON. "

This was Daisy's letter which Guy read with such a pang in his heart ashe had never known before, even when he was smarting the worst fromwounded love and disappointed hopes. Then he had said to himself, "I cannever suffer again as I am suffering now, " and now, alas, he felt howlittle he knew of that pain which rends the heart and takes the breathaway. 

"God help her!" he moaned, his first thought, his first prayer, forDaisy, the girl who called herself his wife, when just across the hall, only a few rods away, was the bride of a few hours--another woman whobore 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 neverceased to love; aye, whom he loved still, and whom, if he could, hewould have taken to his arms so gladly and loved and cherished as thepriceless thing he had once thought her to be. The first moments ofagony which followed the reading of the letter were Daisy's wholly, andin bitterness of soul the man she had cast off and thought to take againcried 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 oneweek ago, I would--would--have gone to you over land and sea, butnow--another is in your place, another is my wife; Julia--poor, innocentJulia. God help me to keep my vow; God help me in my need!"

He was praying now; Julia was the burden of his prayer. And as he prayedthere came into his heart an unutterable tenderness and pity for her. Hehad 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 ofhusbands, and never let her know, by word or sign, of the terrible painhe should always carry in his heart. "Darling Daisy; poor Julia!" waswhat to himself he designated the two women who were both so much tohim. To the first his love, to the other his tender care, for she wasworthy of it. She was noble, and good, and womanly; he said it manytimes, and tried to stop the rapid heart throbs and quiet himself downto meet her when she should come to him with her frank, open face andsmile, in which there was no shadow of guile. She was coming now; heheard her voice in the hall speaking to her friend, and, thrusting thefatal letter in his pocket, he rose to his feet, and steadying himselfupon the table stood waiting for her, as, flushed and eager, she camein. 

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

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

"It came on suddenly, while I was sitting here. It will pass off assuddenly, " he said, trying to smile, and holding out his hand, which shetook 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 worstis over. I am a great deal better. "

And he was better with that fair girl beside him, her face glowing withexcitement and her soft hands pressing his. Perfectly healthy herself, she must have imparted some life and vigor to him, for he felt his pulsegrow steadier beneath her touch, and the blood flow more easily throughhis veins. 

If only he could forget that crumpled letter which lay in his vestpocket and seemed to burn into his flesh; forget that and the young girlacross the sea, watching for an answer and the one word "Come!" he mightbe happy yet, for Julia was one whom any man could love and be proud tocall his wife. And Guy said to himself that he did love her, though notas he once loved Daisy, or as he could love her again were he free to doso, and because of that full love withheld he made a mental vow that hiswhole life should be given to her happiness, so that she might neverknow 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 hadthrown around Julia, who was sitting with him upon the sofa, tightenedits grasp until she winced and moved a little from him. 

He was very talkative that evening, and asked his wife many questionsabout her friends and the shopping she wished to do, and the places theywere to visit; and Julia, who had hitherto regarded him as a great, silent man, given to few words, wondered at the change, and watched thebright red spots on his cheeks, and thought how she would manage to havemedical advice for that dreadful heart disease which had come like anightmare to haunt her bridal days. 

Next morning there came a Boston paper containing a notice of themarriage, and this Guy sent to Daisy, with only the faint tracing of apencil to indicate the paragraph. "Better so than to write, " he thought;though he longed to add the words, "Forgive me, Daisy; your letter cametoo late. "

And so the paper was sent, and after a week or two Guy went back to hishome in Cuylerville, and the blue rooms which Julia had fitted up forDaisy five years before became her own by right. And Fanny Thorntonwelcomed her warmly to the house, and by many little acts ofthoughtfulness showed how glad she was to have her there. And Julia wasvery happy save when she remembered the heart disease, which she wassure Guy had, and for which he would not seek advice. "There was nothingthe matter with his heart unless it were too full of love, " he told herlaughingly, and wondered to himself if in saying this to her he wasguilty of a lie, inasmuch as his words misled her so completely. 

After a time, however, there came a change, and thoughts of Daisy ceasedto 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 untilsix months after his marriage, when there came to him the ten thousanddollars, with all the interest which had accrued since the settlementfirst was made. There was no word from Daisy herself, but a letter froma lawyer in Berlin, who said all there was to say with regard to thebusiness, but did not tell where Miss McDonald, as he called her, was. 

Then Guy wrote to Daisy a letter of thanks, to which there came noreply, and as time went on the old wound began to heal, the grave toclose again; and when, at last, one year after his marriage, theybrought him a beautiful little baby girl and laid it in his arms, andthen a few moments later let him into the room where the pale motherlay, 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 wasa gleam of gold, and Guy, when asked 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, knowing well who Margaret hadbeen; and herself first gave the pet name of Daisy to her child, on whomGuy settled the ten thousand dollars sent to him by the Daisy over thesea. 

CHAPTER IX

DAISY, TOM, AND THAT OTHER ONE

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

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

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

"Yes, I am happy, " Daisy said, rousing from her reverie; "but I did notknow I was pale--or white, as you term it--though, now I think of it, Ido feel sick and faint. It's the heat, I guess. Oh! there is Max withthe mail! He is coming this way! He has--he certainly has something forme!"

Daisy's cheeks were scarlet now, and her eyes were bright as stars asshe 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, mon Dieu! vous êtes malade! J'apporterai un verre d'eau!" Paulineexclaimed, forgetting her English and adopting her mother tongue in heralarm at Daisy's white face and the peculiar tone of her voice. 

"No, Pauline, stay; open the paper for me, " Daisy said, feeling that itwould be easier so than to read it herself, for she knew it 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 foreignpaper, 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, andthen remembering herself, she sank back into her seat in the gardenchair, while Pauline wondered what harm there was in tearing an oldsoiled wrapper, and why her governess should take it so carefully in herhand 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 asuicide on Summer Street, and a golden wedding in Roxbury, and thelatest fashions from Paris, into which Pauline plunged with aviditywhile Daisy listened like one in a dream, asking when the fashions wereexhausted: "Is that all? Are there no deaths or marriages?"

Pauline had not thought of that--she would see, and she hunted throughthe columns till she found Guy's pencil mark, and read:

"Married, this morning, at St. Paul's Church, by the Rev. Dr. ----, assisted by the rector, Guy Thornton, Esq. , of Cuylerville, to MissJulia Hamilton, of this city. "

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

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

It was a 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 exactrelationship existing between Guy Thornton and her teacher's husband, whom she supposed was dead, as Daisy had only confided to madame thefact of a divorce. 

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

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

Slowly she went back to her room, while Pauline walked up and down thegarden trying to make out the relationship between the newly marriedThornton and her teacher. 

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

"Gone to her room, and her brother-in-law is married. It was marked in apaper 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 calledher the next morning reported her as ill and acting very strangely. Through the summer a malarial fever had prevailed to some extent in andabout Rouen, and the physician whom Madame Lafarcade summoned to thesick girl expressed a fear that she was coming down with it, and orderedher kept as quiet as possible. 

"She seems to have something weighing on her mind. Has she heard any badnews from home?" he asked, as in reply to his question where her painwas 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 foreignpaper lying on the table, she took it up, and, guided by the pencilmarks, read the notice of Guy Thornton's marriage, and that gave her thekey at once to Daisy's mental agitation. Daisy had been frank with herand told her as much of her story as was necessary, and she knew thatthe Guy Thornton married to Julia Hamilton had once called Daisy hiswife. 

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

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

He did call and found his patient worse, and the next day he askedMadame 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 followingdispatch:

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

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

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

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

"Don't talk any more, Daisy; it tires you so, " he said, as he saw herabout 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, whileDaisy quickly asked:

"Doesn't he?"

"No, never any more; so, put it from your mind and try to sleep, " Tomsaid, and again the freckled hands smoothed the tumbled pillows andwiped the sweat drops from Daisy's face, while all the time the greatkind heart was breaking, and the hot tears were rolling down thesun-burned face Daisy thought was 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 aturmoil. But for himself he knew there was no hope, and with a feelingof death in his heart he watched by her day and night, yielding hisplace to no one, and saying to madame when she remonstrated with him andbade him care for his own health:

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

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

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

And there, one morning when he called to inquire for her, he, too, wassmitten down with the fever which he had taken with Daisy's breath themany nights and days he watched her without rest or sufficient food. There was a faint, followed by a long interval of unconsciousness, andwhen he came to himself he was in Daisy's own room, lying on Daisy'slittle bed, and Daisy herself was bending anxiously over him with aflush 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--on my bed; and you've got the fever, and I'mgoing to take care of you, and I'm so glad. Not glad you have thefever, " she added, as she met his look of wonder, "but glad I can repayin part all you did for me, you dear, noble Tom! And you are not totalk, " and she laid her small hand on his mouth as she saw him about tospeak. "I am strong enough; the doctor says so, and I'd do it if hedidn't, for you are the best, the truest friend I have. "

She was rubbing his hot, feverish hands, and though the touch of hercool, soft fingers was so delicious, poor Tom thought of the bigfreckles so obnoxious to the little lady, and, drawing his hands fromher grasp, hid them beneath the clothes. Gladly, too, would he havecovered his face and hair from her sight, but this he could not do andbreathe, but he begged her to leave him and send someone 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, through three weeks, when Tom's fever ran higher than hershad done, because there was more for it to feed upon, and when Tom inhis ravings talked of things which made her heart ache with a new anddifferent pain from that already there. 

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

"To that other one over in the corner. Don't you see him? He is waitingfor me till the fever eats me up. There's a lot of me to eat, I'm so bigand awkward, overgrown--that's what Daisy said. You know Daisy, don'tyou? 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 thecorner was waiting for her, and she doesn't like my freckled face andhands--big hands, she said they were, and yet how they have worked likehorses for her! Oh, Daisy! Daisy! I have loved her ever since she was achild, and I drew her to school on my sled and cut her doll's head offto tease her. Take me quick, please, out of her sight, where my freckledface won't offend her. "

He was talking now to that other one, the man in the corner, who, likesome grim sentinel, stood there day and night, while Daisy kept hertireless watch and Tom talked on and on--never to her--but always to theother 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 thetide is at its height, and the river is running so fast. I thought onceit would take Daisy, but it left her, and I am glad. When I am fairlyover and there's nothing but my big, freckled hulk left, cover my faceand 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 flinched from herpost, and stood resolutely between the sick man and that other one inthe corner until the latter seemed to waver a little; his shadow wasnot so black, his presence so all-pervading, and there was hope for Tom. His reason came back at last, and the fever left him, but weak as achild, with no power to move even his poor wasted hands which layoutside the counterpane and seemed to trouble him, for there was awistful, pleading look in his gray eyes as they went from the hands toDaisy, while 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 did when I was crazy. You are not repulsiveto me. You are the truest, best, and dearest friend I ever had, andI--I--oh, Tom, I wish I had never been born. "

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

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

There was no wavering after that decision--no regret for the "might havebeen, " but her face was white as snow, and about the pretty mouth therewas a quivering of the muscles as if the words were hard to utter whennext day she went to Tom, and, sitting down beside him, asked how he wasfeeling. His eyes brightened a little when he saw her, but there was alook 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, nor do I wish to, though life is not a gift tobe 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, " shebegan, when she could speak. "I have been bad to you so often, andworried and wounded you so much; but I am sorry, so sorry, and I'vethought it all over and made up my mind, and I want you to get well andask me that--that--question again--you have asked so manytimes--and--and--Tom--I will say--yes--to it now, and try so hard tomake you happy. "

Her face was crimson as if with shame, and she dared not look at Tomuntil his silence startled her. Then she stole a glance at his face andmet 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 youhappy, and, though at first I cannot love you as I did Guy when I senthim that letter, the love will come, born of your great goodness andkindness of heart. Try me, Tom, won't you?"

She kissed his thin, white hands where the freckles shone more plainlythan ever, and which Tom tried to free from her; she held them fast andlooked steadily into the face, which shone for a moment with a joy sogreat 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 wasaudible, only the chin quivered, and the tears stood in his gray eyes ashe battled with the great temptation. Should he accept the sacrifice?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 cameasking him to take her. Thus Tom decided, and, turning his face to thewall, he said, with a choking sob:

"No, Daisy--no. It cannot be. Such happiness is not for me now. I mustnot think of it. Thank you, darling, just the same. It was kind in youand well meant, but it cannot be. I could not make you happy. I am notlike Guy; never can be like him, and you would hate me after a while, and the chain would hurt you cruelly. No, Daisy, I love you toowell--and yet, Daisy--Daisy--why do you tempt me so--if it could havebeen!"

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

"My darling, my darling, if it could have been, but it's too latenow--God is good and will take me to himself. I thought of it before Iwas sick, and believe I am a better man, and Jesus is my friend, and Iam going to him. I'm glad you told me what you have. It will make mylast days happier, and when I am gone you will find that I did well withyou. "

He put her from him then, for faintness and great exhaustion werestealing over him, and that was the last that ever passed between himand Daisy on the subject which all his life had occupied so much of histhoughts. The fever had left him, it is true, but he seemed to have novital force or rallying power, and after a few days it was clear even toDaisy that Tom's life was drawing to a close. "The man in the corner"was there again waiting for his prey, and would not leave this timeuntil he bore with him an immortal soul. And Tom was very happy. He hadthought much of death and what lay beyond during those days whenDaisy's life hung in the balance, and the result of the much thinkinghad been a full surrender of himself to God, who did not forsake himwhen the dark, cold river was closing over him. 

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

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

Thus he talked, and Daisy, who knew what he meant, wept silently by hisside, and kept the sheet closely drawn over the hands he was so anxiousto have hidden from her view. He knew her at last, and bade her a longfarewell, 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, andDaisy's hand wiped the death moisture from his brow, and Daisy's lipswere pressed to his dying face, and her ear caught his last faintwhisper:

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

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

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

CHAPTER X

MISS MCDONALD

She took that name again, and with it, also, Margaret, feeling thatDaisy was far too girlish an appellation for one who clad herself almostin widow's weeds, and felt, when she stood at poor Tom's grave, morewretched and desolate than many a wife has felt when her husband was putfrom her sight. 

Tom had meant to make her parents independent of her so that she neednot have them with her unless she chose to do so, for, knowing Mr. McDonald as he did, he thought she would be happier alone, but God soordered it that within three months after poor Tom's death they madeanother grave beside his, and Daisy and her mother were alone. 

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

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

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

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

"Can it be I was ever that silly little fool?" she said bitterly, as shefinished her journal. "And how could Guy love me as I know 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 howmuch I love you now; nor can I feel it wrong to do so, even though Inever 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 withnothing to live for or to do. I wish almost that I were dead like Tom, only I dare not think I should go to 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 arouse her. 

"Nothing to live for--nothing to do, " was her lament until one goldenSeptember day, when there came a turning point in her life, and shefound there was something to do. 

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

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

The speaker was young--about Tom's age--and with a look on his floridface and a sound in his voice so like that of the dead man that Daisyhalf started to her feet when he first took his stand in front of herand announced the opening hymn. His text was: "Why stand ye here all theday idle?" and so well did he handle it, and so forcible were hisgestures and eloquent his style of delivery, that Daisy listened to himspellbound, her eyes fixed intently upon his glowing face and her earsdrinking in every word he uttered. 

After dwelling for a time upon the loiterers in God's vineyard, theidlers 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 ofsomething to do, and to these he said: "Have you never read how, whenthe disciples rebuked the grateful woman for wasting upon her Master'shead what might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to thepoor, Jesus said unto them, 'The poor ye have with you always, ' and isit not so, my hearers? Are there no poor at your door to be fed, nohungry little ones to be cared for out of the abundance which God hasonly loaned you for this purpose? Are there no wretched homes which youcan 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, forgettingthemselves, seek the good of others and turn not away from the needy andthe desolate. See to it, then, you to whom God has given much. See to itthat you sit not down in idle ease, wasting upon yourself alone thegoods designed for others, for to whom much is given of him much shallbe required. "

Attracted, perhaps, by the deep black of Daisy's attire, or thesomething about her which marked her as different from the mass of hishearers, the speaker had seemed to address the last of his remarksdirectly to her, and had the dead Tom risen from his grave and spokenwith her face to face, she could hardly have been more affected than shewas. The resemblance was so striking and the voice so like her cousin'sthat she felt as if she had received a message direct from him; or, ifnot from him, she surely had from God, whose almoner she henceforthwould be. 

That day was the beginning of a new life to her. Thenceforth there mustbe no more repining; no more idle, listless days, no more wishing forsomething to do. There was work all around her, and she found it and didit with a will--first, from a sense of duty, and at last for the realpleasure it afforded her to carry joy and gladness to the homes wherewant and sorrow had sat so long. 

Hearing that there were sickness and destitution among the miners inPeru, where her possessions were, she went early in November, and many awretched heart rejoiced because of her, and many a lip blessed thebeautiful lady whose coming among them was productive of so much good. Better dwellings, better wages, a church, a schoolhouse followed in herfootsteps, and then, when everything there seemed in good working order, there came over her a longing for her native country, and the nextautumn found her in New York, where in a short space of time everybodyknew of the beautiful Miss McDonald, who was a millionaire and who ownedthe fine house and grounds in the upper part of the city not far fromthe Park. 

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

"You do look lovely and sing so sweet; I know there's nothing nicer inheaven, " said a little piece of deformity to her one day as it laydying in her arms. "I'se goin' to heaven, which I shouldn't have done ifyou'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 Daisythan all the words of flattery ever poured into her ear. As she hadbrought that little child to God, so she would bring others, and shemade her work among the children especially, finding there her bestencouragement and greatest success. 

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

"Look--that's Miss McDonald, " Guy's friend said to him, "the greatestheiress 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 schoolsthan any half-dozen men in the city, and I don't suppose there's a denin New York where she has not been, and never once, I'm told, was sheinsulted, for the vilest of them stand between her and harm. Once amiscreant on Avenue A knocked a boy down for accidentally stepping in apool of water and sprinkling her white dress in passing. Friday nightsshe has a reception for these people, and you ought to see how well theybehave. At first they were noisy and rough, and she had to have thepolice, but now they are quiet and orderly as you please. Perhaps you'dlike 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 toCuylerville the next day, and with a feeling he could not quite analyze, he turned to look at the turnout which always excited so much attention. But it was not so much at the handsome bays and the bevy ofqueer-looking children he gazed as at the little lady in their midst, clad in velvet and ermine, with a long white feather falling among thecurls of her bright hair. When Daisy first entered upon her new life shehad affected a nun-like garb as one most appropriate, but after a littlechild said to her once, "I'se don't like your black gown all the time. Ilikes sumptin' bright and pretty, " she changed her mind and gave freerscope to her natural good taste and love of what was becoming. And theresult showed the wisdom of the change, for the children and inmates ofthe dens she visited, accustomed only to the squalor and ugliness oftheir surroundings, hailed her more rapturously than they had donebefore, and were never weary of talking of the beautiful woman who wasnot afraid to wear her pretty clothes into their wretched houses, which, lest she should soil and defile them, gradually grew more clean and tidyfor her sake. 

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

Other women, too, caught Biddy's spirit and scrubbed their floors andtheir children's faces on the day when Miss McDonald was expected tocall, and when she came her silk dress and pretty shawl were watchednarrowly lest by some chance a speck of dirt should fasten on them, andher becoming dress and handsome face were commented on and remembered assome fine show which had been seen for nothing. Especially did thechildren like her in her bright dress, and the velvet and ermine inwhich she was clad when Guy met her in the Park were worn more for theirsakes 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, andthere was in his heart a smothered feeling as of a want of somethinglost, as her carriage disappeared from view and he lost sight of thefair face and form which had once been his own. 

The world was going well with Guy, for though Dick Trevylian had paid nopart of the hundred thousand dollars, and he still lived in the browncottage on the hill, he was steadily working his way to competency, ifnot to wealth. His profession as a lawyer, which he had resumed, yieldedhim a remunerative income, while his contributions to differentmagazines were much sought after, so that to all human appearance he wasprosperous and happy. Prosperous in his business, and happy in his wifeand little ones, for there was now a second child, a baby Guy of sixweeks old, and when on his return from New York the father bent over thecradle of his boy and kissed his baby face, that image seen in the Parkseemed to fade away, and the caresses he gave to Julia had in them nofaithlessness or insincerity. She was a noble woman, and had made him agood wife, and he loved her truly, though with a different, lessabsorbing, less ecstatic love than he had given to Daisy. But he did nottell her of Miss McDonald. Indeed, that name was never spoken now, norwas any reference ever made to her except when little Daisy asked wherewas the lady for whom she was named, and why she did not send her adoll. 

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

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

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

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

"BROWN COTTAGE, 'Most Tissmas time. 

"DEAR MISS MCDOLLY:--I'se an 'ittle dirl named for you, I is, Daisy Thornton, an' my papa is Mr. Guy, an' mam-ma is Julia, and 'ittlebrother is Guy, too--only he's a baby, and vomits up his dinner and tiesawfully sometimes; an' I knows anoder 'ittle girl named for somebody whodives her 'sings, ' a whole lot, an' why doesn't youse dive me some, whenI'se your sake-name, an' loves you ever so much, and why'se you neverturn here to see me. I wish you would. I ask papa is you pretty, an' hetell me yes, bootiful, an' every night I p'ays for you and say God bresspapa an' mam-ma, an' auntie, and Miss McDolly, and 'ittle brodder, an'make Daisy a dood dirl, and have Miss McDolly send her sumptin' forTissmas, for Christ's sake. An' I wants a turly headed doll that tiesand suts her eyes when she does to seep, and wears a shash and apairesol, and anodder bigger dolly to be her mam-ma and pank her whenshe's naughty, an' I wants an 'ittle fat-iron, an' a cookstove, an'wash-board. I'se dot a tub. An' I wants some dishes an' a stenshuntable, an' 'ittle bedstead, an' yuffled seets, an' pillars, an' bluesilk kilt, an' ever so many sings which papa cannot buy, 'cause hehasn't dot the money. Vill you send them, Miss McDolly, pese, an' yourlikeness, too. I wants to see how you looks. My mam-ma is pretty, withblack hair an' eyes, but she's awful old--I dess. How old is you? Papa'shair is some dray, an' his viskers, too. My eyes is bue. 

"Yours respectfully, DAISY THORNTON. "

 * * * * *

Miss McDonald had been shopping since ten in the morning, and hercarriage had stood before the dry-goods stores, and toy-shops, and candystores, while bundle after bundle had been deposited on the cushions, and others ordered to be sent. But she was nearly through now, and justas it was beginning to grow dark in the streets she bade her coachmandrive home, where dinner was waiting for her in the dining room, andher 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 camedown to dine with her daughter. The December wind was cold and raw, anda few snowflakes fell on Daisy's hat and cloak as she ran up the stepsand entered the warm, bright room, which seemed so pleasant whencontrasted with the dreariness without. 

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

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

"Yes, all through, except a shawl for old Sarah Mackie and a few moretoys 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'llmake yourself sick, and you are nearly worn out now, rememberingeverybody in New York. "

"Not quite everybody, mother, " Daisy rejoined cheerfully; "only thosewhom everybody forgets--the poor, whom we have with us always. Don'tyou remember the text and the little kirk where we heard it preachedfrom? 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 thetable, looking, in her dark street dress, as her mother had said, paleand worn, as if the shopping had been very hard upon her. And yet it wasnot so much the fatigue of the day which affected her as the remembranceof a past she did not often dare to recall. 

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

Daisy did not receive many letters except on business, and as theseusually came in the morning she did not think to ask if the postman hadleft her anything; and so it was not until her mother had retired andshe was about going to her own room that she saw a letter lying on thehall-stand. Miss Barker, who had instigated the letter, had neverwritten to her more than once or twice, and then only short notes, andshe did not recognize the handwriting at once. But she saw it waspostmarked Cuylerville, and a sick, faint sensation crept over her asshe wondered who had sent it, and if it contained news of Guy. It waslong 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 hadno suspicion of the terrible shock awaiting her, when at last she brokethe seal. Miss Barker had written a few explanatory lines, which were asfollows:

"CUYLERVILLE, Dec. , 18--. 

"DEAR MISS MCDONALD--Since saying good-by to you last June, andgoing off to the mountains and seaside, while you like a good Samaritanstayed in the hot city to look after 'your people, ' I have flittedhither and thither until at last I floated out to Cuylerville to visitMrs. Guy Thornton, who is a friend and former schoolmate of mine. Here--not in the house, but in town--I have heard a story whichsurprised me not a little, and I now better understand that sad look Ihave so often seen on your sweet face without at all suspecting thecause. 

"Dear friend, pardon me, won't you, for the liberty I have taken sinceknowing 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 hehad called her Daisy for you? He has, and with her blue eyes and brightauburn hair, she might pass for your very own, with the exception of hernose, which is decidedly retroussé. She is three years old, and the mostprecocious little witch you ever saw. What think you of her making up abundle of shawls and aprons and christening it Miss McDolly, her namefor you, and talking to it as if it were really the famous and beautifulwoman she fancies it to be? She is your 'sake-name, ' she says, andbefore I knew the facts of the case, I was greatly amused by her talk tothe bundle of shawls which she reproached for never having sent heranything. When I asked Julia (that's Mrs. Thornton) who Miss McDollywas, she merely answered, 'The lady for whom Daisy was named, ' and thatwas all I knew until the gossips enlightened me, when, without a word toanyone, I resolved upon a liberty which I thought I could venture totake with you. I suggested the letter which I inclose and which I wroteexactly 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 yourespond, 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, "Yours, sincerely, "ELLA BARKER. "

Daisy's face was as pale as ashes as she read Miss Barker's letter, andthen snatching up the other, devoured its contents almost at a glance, while her breath came in panting gasps and her heart seemed trying toburst through her throat. She could neither move nor cry out for amoment, but she sat like one turned into stone with that sense ofsuffocation oppressing her, and that horrible pain in her heart. She hadthought 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 andthrobbing again with a pang such as she had never felt before, whilethere crept over her such a feeling of desolation and loneliness, awant of something unpossessed, as few have ever experienced. 

But for her own foolishness that sweet little child might have beenhers, she thought, as her heart went after the little one with anindescribable yearning which made her stretch out her arms as if to takethe baby to her bosom and hold it there forever. Guy had called it forher, and that touched her more than anything else. He had not forgottenher then. She had never supposed he had, but to be thus assured of itwas very sweet, and as she thought of it and read again little Daisy'sletter, the tightness about her heart and the choking sensation in herthroat began to give way, and one after another the great tears rolleddown her cheeks, slowly at first, but gradually faster and faster, untilthey fell in torrents and a tempest of sobs shook her slight frame aswith 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 asoften as she thought of the touching words, "I p'ays for you, " therecame a fresh burst of sobs and tears, until at last nature wasexhausted, and with a low moan Daisy sank upon her knees and tried topray, the words which first sprang to her lips framing themselves intothanks that somewhere in the world there was one who prayed for her andloved her, too, even though the love might have for its object merelydolls and candies and toys. And these the child should have in suchabundance, and Miss McDonald found herself longing for the morrow inwhich to begin again the shopping she had thought was nearly ended. 

It was in vain next day that her mother remonstrated against her goingout, pleading her white, haggard face and the rawness of the day. Daisywas not to be detained at home, and before ten o'clock she was down onBroadway, and the dolly with the "shash" and "pairesol" which she hadseen the day before under its glass case was hers for twenty-fivedollars, and the plainer bit of china, who was to be dollie's mother andperform the parental duty of "panking her when she was naughty, " wasalso purchased, and the dishes and the table and stove and bedstead, with ruffled sheets and pillow-cases and blue satin spread and thewashboard and clothes bars and tiny wringer, with divers others toys, were bought with a disregard of expense which made Miss McDonald awonder to those who waited on her. Such a Christmas box was seldom sentto a child as that which Daisy packed in her room that night, with hermother looking on and wondering what Sunday-school was to be therecipient of all those costly presents and suggesting that cheaperarticles would have answered just as well. 

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

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

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

 * * * * *

Great was the surprise at the brown cottage, when, on the very nightbefore Christmas, the box arrived and was deposited in the dining room, where Guy and Julia, Miss Barker and Daisy gathered eagerly around it, the latter exclaiming:

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

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

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

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

"NEW YORK, December 22, 18--. 

"DARLING LITTLE SAKE-NAME DAISY: Your letter made Miss McDollyvery happy, and she is so glad to send you the doll with a shash, andthe other toys. Write to me again and tell me if they suit you. Godbless you, sweet little one, is the prayer of

"MISS MCDONALD. "

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

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

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

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

"You must write and thank her, " he said to Julia, who, knowing that thiswas proper, assented without a word, and when on the morning afterChristmas Miss McDonald opened with trembling hands the envelope bearingthe Cuylerville postmark, she felt a keen pang of disappointment infinding only a few lines from Julia expressive of her own and littleDaisy's thanks for the beautiful Christmas box, "which made our littlegirl so happy. "

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 tobear?" she whispered, and her lip quivered a little, and the tearssprang to her eyes as she remembered all that lay between the presentand the time when she had been Mrs. Guy Thornton. 

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

The box business had not resulted just as she hoped it would. She hadthought Guy would write himself, and by some word or allusion assure herof his remembrance, but instead there had come to her a few perfectlypolite and well-expressed lines from Julia, who had the impertinence tosign herself Mrs. Guy Thornton! It was rather hard and sorelydisappointing, and for many days Miss McDonald's face was very white andsad, and both the old and young whom she visited as usual wondered whathad 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 nextChristmas time, when another box went to little Daisy, and wasacknowledged as before. Then another year glided by, with a third box toDaisy, and then one summer afternoon in August there came to Saratoga agay party from New York, and the clerk at Congress Hall registered, withother names, that of Miss McDonald. Indeed, it seemed to be her party, or at least she was its center, and the one to whom the others deferredas to their head. Daisy was in perfect health that summer, and inunusually good spirits, and when in the evening, yielding to theentreaties of her friends, she entered the ball-room, clad in flowing, gauzy robes of blue and white, with costly jewels on her neck and arms, she took all hearts by storm, and was acknowledged at once as the starand belle of the evening. She did not dance--she rarely did thatnow--but after a short promenade through the room she took a seat nearthe door, and was watching the gay dancers when she felt her arm softlytouched, 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 herout, Miss McDonald asked what was the matter. 

"This--you must go away at once. I'll pack your things. I promised notto 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 she made out fromthe girl's statement that in strolling on the back piazza she hadstumbled upon her first cousin, of whose whereabouts she had knownnothing for a long time. 

The girl, Mary, had, it seemed, come to Saratoga a week or ten daysbefore, with her master's family, consisting of his wife and twochildren. As the hotel was crowded they were assigned rooms for thenight in a distant part of the house, with a promise of something muchbetter on the morrow. In the morning, however, the lady, who had notbeen well for some days, was too sick to leave her bed, and the doctorwho was called in to see her, pronounced the disease--here Sarah stoppedand gasped for breath and looked behind her and all ways, and finallywhispered a word which made even Miss McDonald start a little and wincewith fear. 

"He do call it the very-o-lord, " Sarah said, "but Mary says it's thevery old devil himself. She knows, she has had it, and you can't putdown a pin where the cratur didn't have his claws. They told thelandlord, who was fur puttin' 'em straight outdoors, but the doctor saidthe lady must not be moved--it was sure death to do it. It was better tokeep 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. Sohe let 'em stay, and the gentleman takes care of her, and Mary keeps thechildren in the next room, and carries and brings the things, and keepsaway 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 verybad, and nobody takes care of her but Mr. Thornton. Mary takes things tothe door, and leaves them outside where he can get them. "

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

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

"Guy Thornton, lady, two children, and servant. Nos. ---- and ----. "

Yes, it was Guy; there could be no mistake, and in an instant herresolution was taken. Calling to her maid, she sent for her shawl andhat, and then bidding her follow, walked away in the moonlight. Theprevious summer when at Saratoga she had received medical treatment fromDr. Schwartz, whom she knew well and to whose office she directed hersteps. He seemed surprised to see her at that hour, but greeted hercordially and 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 beautifulwhite arm and showing a large round scar. "Will this insure me againstdisease?"

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

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

"But another will be safer. Have you fresh vaccine?" Daisy asked; and hereplied:

"Yes, some just from a young, healthy heifer. I never use theadulterated stuff which has been humanized. How do I know what humorsmay be lurking in the blood? Why, some of the fairest, sweetest babiesare full of scrofula!"

He was going on further with his discussion, when Daisy, who knew hispeculiarities, 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 fearswhatever. "

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 onin 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 womanabout her. Women are naturally better nurses than men, and Mr. Thorntonis 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 himgood-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 thundergenerally. "

"Of course not. I know her better than that, " he said to himself. "Poorwoman [referring then to Julia], nothing, I fear, can help her now. "

Meanwhile Daisy 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, clutchingat 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 notafraid. Must we let her die alone?"

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

There was a momentary conflict, and then, with an inward prayer thatHeaven would protect her, she passed on down the narrow hall and knockedsoftly at No. ----, while Sarah stood wringing her hands in genuinedistress, and feeling as if her young mistress had gone to certain ruin. 

CHAPTER XII

IN THE SICK-ROOM

Julia had the smallpox, not varioloid, but the veritable thing itself, in its most aggravated form. Where she took it, or when, she did notknow, nor did it matter. She had it, and for ten days she had seen noone but her husband and physician, and had no care but such as Guy couldgive her. He had been unremitting in his attention. Tender and gentle asa woman, he had nursed her night and day, with no thought for himselfand the risk he ran. It was a bad disease at the best, and now in itsworst type it was horrible, but Julia bore up bravely, thinking alwaysmore of others than of herself, and feeling so glad that Providence hadsent them to those out-of-the-way rooms, where she had at first thoughtshe could not pass a night comfortably. Her children were in the roomadjoining, and she could hear their little voices as they playedtogether, or asked for their mamma and why they must not see her. Alas!they would never see her again; she knew it now, and Guy knew it, too. The doctor had told them so when he left them that night, and betweenthe husband and wife words had been spoken such as are only said whenhearts which have been one are about to be severed forever. 

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

"You have made me so happy. I want you to remember that when I am gone;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 thoughtof that other one whom, you loved first, and it may be best. "

Guy could not say no to that, but he smoothed her hair tenderly, and histears dropped upon the scarred, swollen face he could not kiss, as Juliawent on. 

"But if you did you never showed it in the least, and I bless you forit. 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 onesthan mine call you father, don't forget me quite, because I love you somuch. Oh, Guy, my darling, it is hard to say good-by and know that aftera little this world will go on the same as if I had never been. Don'tthink 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 tomy children, and if you ever meet that other one tell her--tellher--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 windowthe summer air and the silver moonlight streamed, and in the distancewas heard the sound of music as the dance went merrily on. And justthen, when she was in the minds of both, Daisy came, and her gentleknock broke the silence of the room and startled both Guy and Julia. 

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

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

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

"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 upto Julia and laid her soft, white hand upon her head. "I am Daisy, " shesaid, "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 andrubbed the sick woman's head, and held the cool cloth to the face andwiped the parched lips, and rubbed the feverish hands, while Guy stood, looking on, bewildered and confounded, and utterly unable to say a wordor utter a protest to this angel, as it seemed to him, who had comeunbidden to his aid, forgetful of the risk she ran and the danger sheincurred. Once as she turned her beautiful face to him and he saw howwondrously fair and lovely it was, lovely with a different expressionfrom any he had ever seen there, it came over him with a thrill ofhorror that that face must not be marred and disfigured with theterrible pestilence, and he made another effort to send her away. ButDaisy would not go. 

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

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

There was a moment or so of half-consciousness, during which they caughtthe 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-by. I am going toJesus. "

That was the last she ever spoke, and a moment after she was gone. Inhis fear lest the facts should be known to his guests, the host insistedthat the body should be removed under cover of the night, and as Guyknew the railway officials would object to taking it on any train, therewas no alternative except to bury it in town, and so before the morningbroke there was brought up to the room a closely sealed coffin and box, and Daisy helped lay Julia in her last bed, and put a white flower inher hair and folded her hands upon her bosom, and then watched from thewindow the little procession which followed the body out to thecemetery, where, in the stillness of the coming day, they buried it, together with everything which had been used about the bed, Daisy'sparty dress included; and when at last the full morning broke, with stirand life in the hotel, all was empty and still in the fumigated chamberof 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 herlap and her namesake at her side, amusing them as best she could andtelling them their mamma had gone to live with Jesus. 

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

She knew it was Miss McDolly, her "sake-name, " and in her delight atseeing her and her admiration of her great beauty, she forgot in partthe dead mamma on whose grave the summer sun was shining. 

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

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

Miss McDonald had won Daisy's heart, and, knowing that made her ownhappier and lighter than it had been since the day when the paper cameto her with the marked paragraph which crushed her so completely. Therehad been but a few words spoken between herself and Guy, and these inthe presence of others, but at their parting he had taken her softlittle hand in his and held it a moment, while he said, with a chokingvoice: "God bless you, Daisy. I shall not forget your kindness to mypoor Julia, and if you should need--but no, that is too horrible tothink of; may God spare you that. Good-by. "

And that was all that passed between him and Daisy with regard to thehaunting dread which sent her in a few days to her own house in NewYork, where, if the thing she feared came upon her, she would at leastbe at home and know she was not endangering the lives of others. But Godwas good to her, and though there was a slight fever, with darting painsin 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 whenat Christmas time, yielding to the importunities of her littlenamesake, there was a picture of herself in the box sent toCuylerville, the face which Guy scanned even more eagerly than hisdaughter, was as smooth and fair and beautiful as when he saw it atSaratoga, bending over his dying wife. 

CHAPTER XIII

DAISY'S JOURNAL

NEW YORK, June 14, 18--. 

To-morrow I am to take my old name of Thornton again, and be Guy's wifeonce more. Nor does it seem strange at all that I should do so, for Ihave never thought of myself as not belonging to him, even when I knewhe was another's. And yet when in that dreadful night at Saratoga I wentto Julia's room, there was in my heart no thought of this which has cometo me. I only wished to care for her and to be a help to Guy. I did notthink of her dying, and after she was dead there was not a thought ofthe future in my mind until little Daisy put it there by asking if Iwould be her mamma. Then I seemed to see it all, and expected it up tothe 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 some time, and I replied atonce, "Yes, Guy, I will. "

He has been here since, and we have talked it over; all the past when Imade him so unhappy, and when I, too, was so wretched, though I did notsay 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 Ibegan to live for others. I did speak of the letter, and said I hadloved him ever since I wrote it, and that his marrying Julia made nodifference; and when I told him of poor Tom, and what I said to him, notfrom love, but from a sense of duty, and when I told him how Tom wouldnot take me at my word, he held me close to him and said: "I am glad hedid 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 bemade 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 he did. I mean to tryto be like her in those parts wherein she excelled me. 

We are going straight to Cuylerville to the house where I never was butonce, and that on the night when Guy was sick and Miss Frances made mego back in the thunder and rain. She is sorry for that, for she told meso in the long, kind letter she wrote, calling me her little sister andtelling me how glad she is to have me back once more. Accidentally Iheard 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 attractiveplace in the country. 

It will be our summer home, but in the winter my place is here in NewYork with my people, who would starve and freeze without me. Guy hasagreed to that and will be a great help to me. He need never work anymore 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 thatrailroad. And for Guy's sake I am glad, and for his children, theprecious darlings; how much I love them already, and how kind I mean tobe to them both for Julia's sake and Guy's! Hush! That's his ring, andthere's his voice in the hall asking for Miss McDonald, and so for thelast time I write that name, and sign myself, MARGARET MCDONALD. 

_Extracts from Miss Frances Thornton's Diary. _

ELMWOOD, June 15, ----. 

I have been looking over an old journal, finished and laid away longago, and accidentally I stumbled upon a date eleven years back. It wasGuy's wedding day then; it is his anniversary now, and as on that Juneday of years ago I worked among my flowers, so I have been with themthis morning, and as then, people from the town came into our beautifulgrounds, so they came to-day and praised our lovely place and said therewas no place like it in all the country round. But Julia was not withthem. She will never come to us again. Julia is dead, and her grave isoff in Saratoga, for Guy dare not have her moved, but he has erected acostly monument to her memory, and the mound above her is like somebright 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 haveit. Julia is in Heaven and Daisy is here again at Elmwood, which shepurchased with her own money and fitted up with every possibleconvenience and luxury. 

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

It is just a year since she came back to us again. We were in the oldhouse then, but somehow Daisy's very presence seemed to brighten andbeautify it, until I was almost sorry to leave it last April for thisgrander place with all its splendor. 

There was no wedding at all; that is, there were no invited guests, butsure, 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 inthe morning, was literally crowded with the halt, the lame, the maimed, and the blind; the slums of New York, gathered from every back streetand by-lane and gutter; Daisy's "people, " as she calls them, who came tosee her married, and who, strangest of all, brought with them a presentfor the bride, a beautiful family Bible, golden-clasped and bound, andcosting fifty dollars. Sandy McGraw presented it, and had written uponthe fly leaf: "To the dearest friend we ever had we give this book as aslight token of how much we love her. " Then followed upon a sheet ofpaper the names of the donors and how much each gave. Oh, how Daisycried when she saw the ten cents and the five cents and the three centsand the one cent, and knew how it had all been earned and saved at somesacrifice for her. I do believe she would have kissed every one of themif 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 ourhome, where she has been ever since, the sweetest, merriest, happiestlittle creature that ever a man called wife, or a woman sister. She doesleave her things round a little, to be sure, and she is not always readyfor breakfast. I guess she never will wholly overcome those habits, butI can put up with them now better than I used to. Love makes a vastdifference in our estimate of others, and she could scarcely ruffle menow, even if she kept breakfast waiting every morning, and left herclothes lying three garments deep upon the floor. As for Guy--but hishappiness is something I cannot describe. Nothing can disturb his peace, which is as firm as the everlasting hills. He does not caress her asmuch as he did once, but his thoughtful care of her is wonderful, andshe is never long from his sight without his going to seek her. 

God bless them both and keep them ever as they are now, at peace withHim and all in all to each other. 

THE END

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NEW JUVENILES

By Famous Authors

_Bound in Cloth; decorated cover designs; printed on extra book paper;burnished colored edges; handsomely illustrated. _

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THE MANOR SCHOOL. By MRS. L. T. MEADE. Ten Full PageIllustrations. 

 A sweetly written and popular story of girl life. Full of fun and adventure. Told in a manner to interest and amuse young people of any age. 

 Very few authors have achieved a popularity equal to that of Mrs. Meade as a writer of stories for girls. Her characters are living beings of flesh and blood. Into the trials and crosses of these the reader enters at once with zest and hearty sympathy. Mrs. Meade always writes with a high moral purpose. Cloth. 12mo. Price, $1. 25. 

THE DEFENSE OF THE CASTLE. A Story for Boys and Girls. By TUDORJENKS, author of "Imaginotions, " "World's Fair Book, " "Boys' Bookof Explorations, " "Galopoff, the Talking Pony, " "Gypsy, the TalkingDog, " etc. 

 This is a good, lively, fighting story, but not bloodthirsty. It tells of a boy and girl who, during the absence of their father at the Crusades, with the help of an old soldier defended the castle from the attack of an armed force led by a treacherous relative. The time is about that of Ivanhoe. Cloth, 12mo. Price, $1. 00. 

WITH BOONE ON THE FRONTIER; or, The Pioneer Boys of Old Kentucky. ByCAPTAIN RALPH BONEHILL. 

 This tale is complete in itself, but forms Volume I of the "Frontier Series. " It relates the true-to-life adventures of two boys who, in company with their folks, move westward with Daniel Boone. Contains many thrilling scenes among the Indians and encounters with wild animals. Written in Captain Bonehill's best style, and will most likely be the boys' book of the season. Cloth. 12mo. Price, $1. 00. 

UNDER THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. Story of a Boy's Adventures in theSpanish-American War. By CAPTAIN F. S. BRERETON, author of"Dragon of Pekin, " etc. 

 A vivid and accurate account of this memorable struggle. The hero leaves his home in search of work, finds it on a Cuban plantation, is denounced to the Spaniards as a spy, makes his escape to the American fleet, and afterwards joins the Rough Riders and participates in the battles around Santiago. Cloth. 12mo. Price, $1. 00. 

THE MERSHON COMPANY, RAHWAY, N. J. 

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FLAG OF FREEDOM SERIESBy CAPTAIN RALPH BONEHILL

Volumes Illustrated, Bound in Cloth, with a very Attractive Cover, Price60 Cents per Volume

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WITH CUSTER IN THE BLACK HILLS; or, A Young Scout among the Indians

 This is a complete story in itself, but forms the sixth and last volume of Captain Bonehill's popular "Flag of Freedom" Series. It tells of the remarkable experiences of a youth who, with his parent, goes to the Black Hills in search of gold. Custer's last battle is well described. A volume every lad fond of Indian stories should possess. 

BOYS OF THE FORT; or, A Young Captain's Pluck

 Captain Bonehill is at his best when relating a tale of military adventure, and this story of stirring doings at one of our well-known forts in the Wild West is of more than ordinary interest. The young captain had a difficult task to accomplish, but he had been drilled to do his duty, and he did it thoroughly. Gives a good insight into army life of to-day. 

THE YOUNG BANDMASTER; or, Concert Stage and Battlefield

 In this tale Captain Bonehill touches upon a new field. The hero is a youth with a passion for music, who, compelled to make his own way in the world, becomes a cornetist in an orchestra, and works his way up, first, to the position of a soloist, and then to that of leader of a brass band. He is carried off to sea and falls in with a secret-service cutter bound for Cuba, and while in that island joins a military band which accompanies our soldiers in the never-to-be-forgotten attack on Santiago. A mystery connected with the hero's inheritance adds to the interest of the tale. 

OFF FOR HAWAII; or, The Mystery of a Great Volcano

 Here we have fact and romance cleverly interwoven. Several boys start on a tour of the Hawaiian Islands. They have heard that there is a treasure located in the vicinity of Kilauea, the largest active volcano in the world, and go in search of it. Their numerous adventures will be followed with much interest. 

A SAILOR BOY WITH DEWEY; or, Afloat in the Philippines

 The story of Dewey's victory in Manila Bay will never grow old, but here we have it told in a new form--not as those in command witnessed the contest, but as it appeared to a real, live American youth who was in the navy at the time. Many adventures in Manila and in the interior follow, giving true-to-life scenes from this remote portion of the globe. A book that should be in every boy's library. 

WHEN SANTIAGO FELL; or, The War Adventures of Two Chums

 Captain Bonehill has never penned a better tale than this stirring story of adventures in Cuba. Two boys, an American and his Cuban chum, leave New York to join their parents in the interior of Cuba. The war between Spain and the Cubans is on, and the boys are detained at Santiago de Cuba, but escape by crossing the bay at night. Many adventures between the lines follow, and a good pen-picture of General Garcia is given. The American lad, with others, is captured and cast into a dungeon in Santiago; and then follows the never-to-be-forgotten campaign in Cuba under General Shafter. How the hero finally escapes makes reading no wide-awake boy will want to miss. 

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Press Opinions of Captain Bonehill's Books for Boys

 "Captain Bonehill's stories will always be popular with our boys, for the reason that they are thoroughly up-to-date and true to life. As a writer of outdoor tales he has no rival. "--_Bright Days. _

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THE MERSHON COMPANY156 Fifth Ave. , New York Rahway, N. J.