Chapter 41

WHAT DAISY DID.

She flirted with every man on the ship who would flirt with her. Even Allen Browne was not insensible to her charms. During the last few months he had developed amazingly, and had put on all the airs of a first-class dandy. He parted his hair in the middle, carried an eye-glass and a cane, wore a long overcoat, and pants so tight that it was a matter of speculation with his friends how he ever got into them, or being in, how he ever got out! His last purchase in London had been a pair of pointed shoes, which were just coming into vogue, as was the species of the male gender called "dudes."

"A dudle I call 'em, and think 'em too shaller for, anything," was Mrs. Rossiter-Browne's comment, and she looked a little askance at her son, wondering how he would impress the Ridgevillians at home, and especially what Miss Boughton would think of him. "I wouldn't make a 'tarnel fool of myself if 'twas the fashion," she said to him when the pointed toes appeared.

But Allen had his own ideas, and, encouraged by Daisy, who, though wonderfully amused at his appearance, told him he was "_tout-a-fait parisien_," he followed his own inclinations, and, arrayed in all his finery, made himself the laughing-stock of the passengers. But he did not care so long as Daisy smiled upon him, and allowed him to attend her. He walked with her on deck and brought her chair for her, and her shawl, and rug, and wrapped her feet carefully, and held the umbrella over her head to screen her from the wind, and hovered over her constantly, leaving his mother to stagger, or rather crawl up the stairs as best she could, with her rug, and shawl, and waterproof, and saw her umbrella turned inside out, and carried out to sea, without offering her any assistance, even when, as she expressed it, she was "sick enough to die."

Augusta did not need his attentions, for Lord Hardy devoted himself to her, and nothing which Daisy could do availed to lure him from her side. Once when Allen said to her that "Hardy seemed pretty hard hit with Gus," her lip curled scornfully, but she dared not express her real feelings and say how little the Irish lord cared for the girl herself. She must not offend the Rossiter-Brownes, and she smiled sweetly upon her rival, and called her "Gussie dear," and flattered Mrs. Browne, and made eyes at Mr. Browne, and asked him to _bet_ for her in the smoking-room, where he spent most of his time with a set of men who are always there, smoking, drinking, joking, and betting upon the daily speed of the ship, or any other trivial thing to pass away the time. So, while his son flirted with the fair lady on deck, Mr. Browne bet for her in the smoking-room with so good success, that when the losses and gains were footed up she found herself richer by one hundred and fifty dollars than when she left Liverpool. Mrs. Browne did not believe in betting. It was as bad as gambling, she said. And Daisy admitted it, but said, with, tears in her eyes, that it would do so much good to Bessie and her sick husband, to whom she should send every farthing as soon as she reached New York.

The voyage had been unusually long, but this was their last day out. New York was in sight, and in her most becoming attire Daisy stood upon the deck, looking eagerly at the, to her, new world, and wholly unconscious of the shock awaiting her on the shore which they were slowly nearing. At last the ship reached the dock, the plank was thrown out, and a throng of passengers crowed the gangway.

"Is Mrs. Archibald McPherson on board?" was shouted through the ship, and in a flutter of expectation Daisy went forward, announcing herself as the lady in question. "A telegram has been waiting for you more than a week," was the response, as the officer placed in her hand the yellow missive whose purport he knew.

"A message for me! Where could it have come from, I wonder," Daisy said, as, without a suspicion of the truth, she broke the seal and read:

"STONELEIGH, June ----.

"Your husband died this morning, quietly and peacefully. Bessie well, but very tired.

"GREY JERROLD."

"Oh-h! Archie, my husband!" Daisy cried, bitterly as she sank down into a chair and covered her face with her hands, while over her for a moment there swept a great wave of regret for the man she had loved in the days when she was innocent and young, and not the hard, selfish woman of the world that she was now. "Archie is dead, dead!" she moaned, as the Rossiter-Brownes gathered around her, together with Lord Hardy, who took the telegram from her and read it aloud, while he, too, experienced a throb of pain for the man he had known so long and esteemed so highly, even while he despised him for his weakness in suffering his wife to lead the life she had.

How vividly it all came back to him--the day when he first saw Archibald McPherson, the fair English boy, for he was scarcely more than that, with his young girl-wife, so innocent and lovely then. And she was lovely still and he pitied her, for he believed her grief genuine, mingled as it must be with remorse for the past, and laying his hand on her bowed head, he said to her, kindly:

"I am very sorry for you, and if I can do anything for you, do not hesitate to command me."

Alas for poor weak human nature when perverted from its better side! The sound of Teddy's voice, so different from what it had been before during the voyage, awoke a throb in Daisy's heart, which she would not like to have confessed to those around her. She was free now, and who knew that she might not one day be mistress of that handsome place in Ireland, Lord Hardy's home, if she only played her cards well. Surely that low-born Yankee girl, Augusta Browne, could never be her rival, even if she had money. Such was the thought which flashed like lightning through Daisy's mind as she felt the touch of Lord Hardy's hand and heard his sympathetic voice.

Her first impulse, when she read the telegram, had been that she must go back to Bessie in the first ship which sailed, but now her decision was reversed. Archie was dead and buried. She could do no good to him, and she might as well stay a little while, especially as she knew Lord Hardy had accepted Mrs. Browne's invitation to spend a few days with them at the Ridge House. It would never do to abandon the field to Augusta, she reflected, but her tears flowed just as fast, and, to do her justice, there was a sense of bitter pain in her heart, as she sat with her head bowed down, while the Brownes and Lord Hardy stood around trying to comfort her. Mrs. Browne offered her sal-volatile and called her "my poor dear;" Augusta put her arms around her neck; Allen fanned her gently, and Lord Hardy asked what he could do, while Mr. Browne said it was "plaguey hard on her, but somebody must go and see to them confounded custom-house chaps, or they would have every dud out of the ten trunks, and there'd be a pretty how-d'ye-do."

Thus reminded of what had been a terror to her all the voyage, Mrs. Browne suggested that Daisy should leave the ship and sit on the wharf with "Gusty to attend to her, while she helped her husband pull through."

It was in vain that Mr. Browne protested against any help, telling his better-half to mind her business, and saying that she'd only upset everything with her fussiness and red face. But Mrs. Browne would not listen. She was not going to let him lie. She had given him numerous lectures on that point during the voyage, and had always ended them with the assertion that she wouldn't pay duty either! Just what she meant to do she did not know, but she went with her husband to the field of combat, and was soon hotly engaged with three officers, who, seeing her nervousness and hearing her excited voice, scented mischief, of course, and notwithstanding that she declared she was Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, of Ridgeville, a church member in good standing, and asked if they thought she would do a thing she believed was wrong, they answered that her idea of wrong and theirs might not agree, and they went to the bottom of her largest trunk, and found the silk dress she had bought for her friend, Mrs. Boughton, who had told her "to get one _worth_ four dollars a yard, but not to give over two, and on no account pay duty."

"I trust to your Yankee wit to get it through," Mrs. Boughton had written, citing several instances where similar things had been done and no lies told either!

And it was this particular dress at the very bottom of her trunk for which Mrs. Browne felt the most anxiety. But the remorseless officers found it, and found a plush table-spread she had bought in Paris and a cushion to match, and, as they held them up, they facetiously asked her to what church she belonged.

She told them none of their business, and as her principles and patience were both at a low ebb by this time, and the meaning of rendering to Cæsar the things which were Cæsar's did not seem at all clear to her, she whispered fiercely to her husband:

"Ike, you fool, why don't you fee 'em? I can't have 'em riddlen' all them tother trunks, with my seal-skin, and Gusty's fur-lined cloak, and Allen's new overcoat, and that clock and mosaic table. Fee 'em high, too, and do it quick! there's that wretch now liftin' out a tray!"

To those who have witnessed similar scenes it is needless to say that by some magic the search was stopped, and neither Mrs. Browne's seal-skin, nor Augusta's fur-lined cloak, nor Allen's overcoat were molested, and the ten trunks were chalked and deposited in the express wagons, and the Rossiter-Brownes, with Lord Hardy and Daisy, were driven to the Windsor.

Meantime Daisy had cried a good deal, and leaned her head against Augusta and once against Lord Hardy's arm, and sobbed:

"Oh, Teddy, you knew my Archie, and know just how good and patient he was, and how lonely I shall be without him. Oh, what shall I do?"

Teddy did not suggest anything she could do, though he naturally thought she would go home at once; and Mrs. Browne thought so, too, when she had recovered from her encounter with the custom-house officers and could think of anything. But she would not be the first to suggest it outright. She merely said it was a pity that Mrs. McPherson could not see anything of America except New York, which was much like any great city.

"Yes," Daisy sobbed, "such a pity, and I had anticipated so much. Oh, Mrs. Browne, I do want to do right, and you must advise me. Now that I am here, and poor, dear Archie is dead and buried, and I can do him no good by going back at once, do you think it would look very bad and heartless in me if I stay a little while--just long enough to see your lovely country home, and rest? I am so tired!" and as Allen happened to be the nearest to her, she leaned her head against him and cried aloud.

Before Mrs. Browne could reply, Augusta asked:

"What of Bessie? Will she not be very lonely without you?"

"Nasty cat! She is as jealous as she can be, and I will stay to spite her," Daisy thought, but she said: "Oh, yes, I ought to go home to Bessie, though she would bid me stay now that I am here; she is so unselfish, and I shall never come again. Her cousin's family in London will take her directly home, so she will not be alone. Poor Bessie!"

Daisy knew that the London family would not take Bessie to their home, but it answered her purpose to say so, and seemed some excuse for her remaining, as she finally decided to do, greatly to Allen's delight and somewhat to Mrs. Browne's surprise. Yet the glamour of Daisy's beauty, and style, and position was over her still, and she was not sorry to show her off to the people in the hotel, and anticipated in no small degree what would be said by her friends at home when she showed them a live lord and an English lady like Daisy. She was going to Ridgeville in a day or two, but Daisy's mourning must first be bought, and in the excitement of shopping, and trying on dresses and bonnets, and deciding which shape was the most becoming, Daisy came near forgetting "poor, dear, dead Archie," of whom she talked so pathetically when she spoke of him at all.

"Don't, I beg of you, think that I ever for a moment forget my loss," she said to Mrs. Browne, when she had with a hand-glass studied the hang of her crape vail for at least fifteen minutes. "It hurts me to speak of him, but there is a moan in my heart for him all the time."

And Mrs. Browne believed her, and thought she was bearing it bravely, and paid all the bills, and thought her the most beautiful creature in her weeds that she had ever seen. And truly she was a lovely little widow, with just enough pallor in her face to be interesting and show that her sorrow had robbed her of some of her roses, or, as Lord Hardy suspected, that she had purposely omitted the roses, when making her toilet, for the sake of effect.

Lord Hardy knew the lady perfectly, and knew there was not a real thing about her except, indeed, her hair, which was wavy and abundant still, and of which she was very proud, often allowing it to fall on her neck, and always arranging it in the most negligent and girlish manner. Once her complexion had been her own, but the life she had led was not conducive to bloom, and much of her bright color and the pearly tint of her skin was now the work of art, so skillfully done, however, that few could detect it. Mrs. Browne did not. She never suspected anything, and took Daisy for what she seemed, and was glad Allen was so fond of her as in her society he was safe, she said, "and could not help getting kind of refined and cultivated up."

Daisy wrote to Bessie, telling her how prostrated with grief she was, and that she should have taken the first ship home if the Rossiter-Brownes had not insisted that she should stay and see a little of America.

"But it will not be for long," she wrote. "I shall soon return, and I send you thirty pounds, absolutely my own. This will last till I am with you, and then we will contrive together how to live respectably and happily."

The day after the letter was sent, the Browne party started for Ridgeville, reaching the Allington station about three in the afternoon of a lovely July day.

The news of their coming had preceded them, and the Ridge House, which was a large, imposing mansion, had for days been the scene of much bustle and excitement, for it was known that an Irish lord was to accompany the family, and an English lady, who, if not titled, was connected with some of the best families in England.

There was a great deal of talk and gossip among the neighbors, who had known the Rossiter-Brownes with out an "e" or a hyphen, when he was simply Ike and she was Angeline, Miss Lucy Grey's hired girl. But they were rich people now; they owned the finest house in Ridgeville, and every room was covered with what Mrs. Browne called a Mocha carpet, and they kept negroes instead of white servants, and the barn was full of boxes of all sizes, which had arrived, from time to time, bearing foreign marks upon them, thus impressing the lower class with a species of awe as they thought how far they had come, and how much they had probably cost.

Then, the family had traveled and consorted with nobility, and seen the Queen and the Pope, and in consequence of all this there was quite a crowd of people at the station when the New York express stopped then and deposited upon the platform twelve trunks, three hat boxes, an English terrier, a Dongola cat, with innumeral satchels and port-manteaus, and seven people--Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, Augusta Browne, Allen Browne, Daisy McPherson, a French maid, and Lord Hardy. _He_, plainly dressed in a gray suit, which did not fit him at all, but with a decidedly aristocratic look upon his face as he glanced curiously at the crowd gathering around the Brownes, and greeting them with noisy demonstrations: Daisy, in deep black, with her vail thrown back from her lovely lace and a gleam of ridicule and contempt in her blue eyes as they flashed upon Lord Hardy as if for sympathy; the French maid, in white apron and cap, tired, homesick and bewildered with Mrs. Browne's repeated calls to know if she was sure she had all the bags, and shawls, and fans, and umbrellas, and the shrill voice of a little boy who shouted to her as the train moved off, "I say, hain't you left your bunnet in the cars; 'tain't on your head;" Allen, stunning in his long, light overcoat, tight pants, pointed shoes, cane, and eye-glasses, which he found very necessary as he pointed out his luggage, and in reply to the baggage-master's hearty "How are you, my boy?" drawled out, "Quite well--thanks--but awful tired, you know;" Augusta, in a Jersey jacket, with gloves buttoned to her elbows, and an immense hat, with two feathers on the back; Mr. Browne in a long ulster, and soft hat, with gloves, which his wife made him wear; and Mrs. Browne, in a Paris dress, fearfully and wonderfully made, and a poke bonnet, so long and so pokey that to see her face was like looking down a narrow lane.

No wonder the plain people of Ridgeville, to whom poke bonnets, and jersey jackets, and long gloves, and pointed toes, were then new, were startled, and a little abashed at so much foreign style, especially as it was accompanied by nobility in the person of Lord Hardy. At him the people stared curiously, deciding that he was not much to look at if he was a lord, and wondering if he was after Augusta.

"Her mother will bust, if he is. She has about as much as she can do to keep herself together now. I wonder if she has forgot that she was once a hired girl, and worked like the rest of us?" was whispered by some of the envious ones.

But this was before they had received Mrs. Browne's greeting, which was just as cordial as of old, and her voice was just as loud and hearty. She didn't mean to be stuck up because she'd been abroad; she was a democrat to her back-bone, she had frequently asserted, and she carried out her principles, and shook hands with everybody, and kissed a great many, and thanked them for coming to meet her; and then, with her husband, Augusta, and Lord Hardy, entered her handsome carriage and was driven toward home.

The French maid went in the omnibus, while Allen drove Daisy himself in the pony phaeton, not a little proud of the honor, and the attention he was attracting as he took his seat beside the beautiful woman, whose face had never looked fairer or sweeter than it did under the widow's bonnet.

"What a lovely pony! Is he gentle? and do you think I might venture to drive him?" Daisy asked, with a pretty affectation of girlishness, as they left the station; and Allen instantly put the reins in her hands, and leaning languidly back, watched her admiringly, with a strange thrill of something undefinable in his heart.

"Do we pass Miss McPherson's house?" Daisy asked and he replied:

"Yes, at a little distance; and we can go very near to it by taking the road across the common," and he indicated the direction. "That is the place, with all those cherry trees," he continued, pointing toward the unpretentious house where Miss Betsey McPherson had lived for so many years, and where she now sat upon the piazza, with Hannah Jerrold at her side.

Miss Betsey had been in Boston for two weeks, and had only returned home that morning, finding Bessie's letter of thanks, written so long ago and not forwarded to her until one of the firm in London heard of Archie's death. This letter she had read with a great feeling of pity for and yearning toward the young girl who had written it.

"I wish I had sent her more, and I will by and by," she thought, never dreaming that Archie was dead, or that his wife was so near.

She had not even heard of the arrival in New York of the Brownes, and was talking with Hannah Jerrold, who had come over to see her, when the carriage containing Mr. and Mrs. Browne, Augusta and Lord Hardy, came into view across the common.

"Why, that's the Brownes!" she exclaimed. "Are they home? and who is that tow-headed chap with them? Not Allen, surely?"

Hannah explained that the Brownes were expected that afternoon, and that an Irish lord was coming with them, and that half Ridgeville had gone to the station to meet them.

"Irish fiddlesticks! After Augusta's money, of course," Miss Betsey returned, with a snort, but whatever else she might have said was cut short by the appearance of the phaeton with Allen and Daisy in it.

"I wonder who she is. I hope she stares well. Seems to me I have seen her before," Miss Betsey said, adding, as Daisy half inclined her head, and smiled upon her, "Who can she be? Somebody they have picked up to make a splurge with. A widow, at any rate."

"Oh, yes, I remember now to have heard from the cook at Ridge House that an English lady was to accompany the family home, and--yes, her name was McPherson, too--Lady McPherson, the cook called her. This is she, no doubt."

"Lady McPherson," Miss Betsey repeated "There is no Lady McPherson except my brother's wife, Lady Jane, and she is almost as dried up and yellow by this time as I am, while this lady is young, and--good gracious! It is she! The Jezebel! Lady McPherson indeed!" and Miss Betsey sprang to her feet so energetically as to startle her visitor, who had no idea what she meant.

The face seen on the terrace at Aberystwyth years ago had come back to Miss Betsey, and she felt sure that she had just seen it again, smiling upon Allen Browne as it had then smiled upon Lord Hardy. But why in widow's weeds? Was Archie dead? she asked herself, as she resumed her seat and tried to seem natural.

Hannah saw that something ailed her; but she was too well bred to ask any questions, and soon took her leave.

Alone with her own thoughts, Miss Betsey fell to soliloquizing:

"That letter was written long ago; Archie may be dead, and this painted gambler has gulled the Brownes and come to America as their guest, with the snipper-snapper of a Hardy. I must find out if Archie is dead, and what has become of the girl."

After she had had her tea. Miss Betsey ordered her old white horse and old-fashioned buggy to be brought round, and started for a drive, taking the Ridgeville road and passing the house of the Brownes, where the family were assembled upon the wide piazza, enjoying the evening breeze. At a glance she singled out Daisy, who was reclining gracefully in an arm-chair, with a pond-lily at her throat, relieving the blackness of her dress, and Allen Browne leaning over and evidently talking to her.

As Miss McPherson drove very slowly, and looked earnestly toward the house, which was at a little distance from the road, Mrs. Browne, who was watching her, ventured down the walk, bowing half hesitatingly, for she had never been on terms of intimacy with Miss Betsey, of whom she stood a little in awe.

Reining up old Whitey, the lady stopped and waited until Mrs. Browne came to her. Then, extending her hand, she said:

"You are welcome home again. I did not know you had come until I saw your carriage go by, and the phaetons with Allen and a lady in it," and she glanced toward Daisy, who, having heard from Allen that the stiff, queer-looking woman in the buggy was her aunt, had arisen to her feet for the purpose of getting a better view of her.

"Yes," Mrs. Browne began, "we got home to-day, and a more tuckered out lot you never saw. Home is home, if it's ever so homely, I tell 'em. By the way, I'm glad you happened this way. I was goin' to send you word, I've brought home with me one of your relations, Mrs. Archibald McPherson, your nephew's wife, and I hope you'll call and see her. She is very nice, and so pretty, too. That's her in black."

"Ahem!" and Miss Betsey's thin lips were firmly compressed. "Ahem! yes--Mrs. Archibald McPherson. Why is she in black?"

Then followed the story of the telegram received on the Celtic, and the terrible shock it was to Daisy, who was for a time wholly overcome.

"Seems pretty brisk now," Miss Betsey said, glancing sharply toward the airy figure now walking up and down the piazza with Allen at its side. "Why didn't she go home at once to her daughter?"

"She did talk of it," Mrs. Browne replied, uneasily for she detected disapprobation of her guest in Miss McPherson's tone. "I think she would of went, but it seemed a pity not to see a little of America first. She will not stay long, and I hope you'll call soon. I b'lieve you have never been in my new house."

"No, I have not. Who, may I ask, is that tow-headed man, with his hair parted in the middle?"

"Oh, excuse me," and Mrs. Browne brightened at once. "That is Lord Hardy. We met him in Nice. He is going West, and we persuaded him to stop here first. He is very nice, and not at all stuck up."

"Yes, an Irishman. I've seen him before. If he is poor, my advice is, look out for Augusta, and, anyway, have a care for your boy. Good-night. It's growing late. Get up, Whitey," and with a jerk at the reins the old lady drove on, while Mrs. Browne, rather crestfallen and disappointed, went slowly back to the house, wondering why she was to have a care for her _boy_, her Allen, still walking up and down at Daisy's side, and talking eagerly to her.

"I suppose I am meaner than dirt, but I cannot help it, I will not notice that woman--no, not a woman, but a gambler, an adventuress, a flirt, who, if she cannot capture that Irishman, will try her luck with Allen! I hate her, but I pity the girl, and I'll send her a hundred pounds at once," Miss Betsey soliloquized, as she went home through the gathering twilight.

And before she slept she wrote to her bankers in London, bidding them forward to Bessie's address another hundred pounds, and charge it to her account.

The next morning Miss Betsey was sitting in her hop-vine-covered porch, shelling peas for her early dinner, and thinking of Archie and the painted Jezebel, as she designated Daisy, when a shadow fell upon the floor, and looking up she saw the subject of her thoughts standing before her, with her yellow hair arranged low in her neck, and a round black hat set coquettishly upon her head. Miss Betsey did not manifest the least surprise, but adjusting her spectacles from her forehead to her eyes, looked up inquiringly at her visitor, who, seating herself upon the threshold of the door, took off her hat, and in the silvery tones she could assume so well, said:

"You must excuse me, dear auntie. I could not wait for you to call, I wanted to see you so badly, and, as Allen Browne was going to the post-office, I rode down with him, I am Daisy--Archie's wife, or widow, for Archie is dead, you know."

She said this very sadly and low, and there were great tears in the blue eyes lifted timidly and appealingly to the little sharp, bead like eyes confronting her so steadily through the spectacles. How very lovely and youthful-looking she was as she sat there in the doorway, and Miss Betsey acknowledged the youth and the loveliness, but did not unbend one whit.

"Ahem!" she began, and the tone was not very reassuring "I knew you were here. Mrs. Browne told me, and I saw you there with Allen yesterday. I saw you years ago on the terrace at Aberystwyth, and remembered you well. Was Archie very sick when you left him?"

"Yes--no," Daisy said, stammeringly; "that is, he had been sick a long time, but I did not think him so bad or I should never have left him. Oh, auntie, it almost killed me when I heard he was dead, and there is a moan for him in my heart all the time."

She adopted this form of speech because it had sounded prettily to herself when she said it to Mrs. Browne, who had believed in the moan, but Miss Betsey did not.

"Ahem!" she said; "how much time have you spent with Archie the last ten years or so?"

"Not as much as I wish I had now. I was obliged to be away from him," Daisy replied, and the spinster continued:

"Why?"

"My health was poor, and I was so much better out of England; and so, when people invited me, I went with them--it saved expense at home, and we are so poor, oh! you cannot know how poor;" and Daisy clasped her hands together despairingly as she gazed up at the stern face above her, which did not relax in its sternness, but remained so hard and stony that Daisy burst out impetuously: "Oh, auntie, why are you so cold to me. Why do you hate me so? I have never harmed you. I want you for my friend--mine and Bessie's; and we need a friend so much in our loneliness and poverty. Bessie is the sweetest, truest girl you ever knew."

For a moment Miss Betsey's hands moved rapidly among the pea-pods; then removing her spectacles and wiping them with the corner of her apron, she began:

"I mean to treat everybody civilly in my own house, but if I say anything I must tell the naked truth. I believe Bessie is a true girl, as you say; but I have my doubts of you. I have heard much of your career; have talked with those who have seen you in that hell at Monte Carlo, bandying jests with young profligates and blear-eyed old men, more dangerous than the younger ones because better skilled in evil. I saw you myself on the terrace at Aberystwyth, flirting as no married woman should flirt with that whiffet, Lord Hardy, who, it seems, is here with you, and whom perhaps you think to capture now that you are free. But let me tell you that men seldom pick up and wear a soiled garment, particularly when they have helped to soil it. Lord Hardy will never marry you, and my advice is that you go home, as you ought to have done at once. Go back to your child and be a mother to her; but, as you hope for heaven, never try to drag her down where you are. You talk of poverty. You do not show it. Those diamonds in your ears never cost a small sum, nor that solitaire upon your finger."

"They were given to me," Daisy sobbed, as she rose to her feet and put on her hat preparatory to leaving, while Miss Betsey continued:

"Given to you! The more shame for you to take them. Better throw them away than wear them as a badge of degradation. Yes, throw them away, or send them back whence they came. Wash that paint off your face. Get rid of that made-up smirk around your mouth. Remember that you are going on toward forty."

"Oh-h!" Daisy groaned; "I am not quite thirty-six."

"Well, thirty-six, then," the spinster rejoined. "There's a wide difference between thirty-six and sixteen. You are a widow; you have a grown-up daughter. You are no longer young, though you are good enough looking, but good looks will not support you honestly. Go home and go to work, if it is only to be a bar-maid at the George Hotel; and when I see you have reformed, I do not say I will not do something for you, but just so long as you go round sponging your living and making eyes at men--and boys, too, for that matter--not a penny of my money shall you ever touch. I've said my say, and there comes the boy Allen for you. Good-morning."

She arose to take her peas to the kitchen. The conference was ended, and with a flushed face and wet eyes Daisy went out to the phaeton, into which Allen handed her very carefully, and then took his seat beside her. He noticed her agitation, but did not guess its cause, until she said, with a little gasping sob:

"I was never so insulted in my life as by that horrid old woman. Had I been the vilest creature in the world she could not have talked worse to me. She said I was living upon your people--sponging she called it; that I was after Lord Hardy--and--and--oh, Allen--even you--the _boy_ she called you, and she bade me go home and hire out as bar-maid at the George Hotel in Bangor."

"The wretch! Boy, indeed!" Allen said, bristling with indignation at this fling at his youth, but feeling a strange stir in his young blood at the thought of this fair creature being after him.

Arrived at the Ridge House, Daisy went directly to her room and had the headache all day; and gave Mrs. Browne a most exaggerated account of her interview with her aunt, but omitted the part pertaining to Lord Hardy and Allen, the latter of whom hovered disconsolately near the door of her room and sent her messages and a bouquet, and was radiant with delight when after tea-time she was so far restored as to be able to join the family upon the piazza. It was Allen who brought a pillow for her, and a footstool, and asked if she was in a draught, and when she said she was, moved her chair at her request nearer to Lord Hardy, who scarcely looked at her, and did not manifest the slightest interest in her headache, or in her. Nothing which Daisy could do was of any avail to attract him to her, and she tried every wile and art upon him during the next few days, but to no purpose. At last, when she had been at the Ridge House a week, and she had an opportunity of seeing him alone, she said, in a half playful, half complaining voice:

"What is it, Teddy? What has come between us that you are so cold to me? Has the fair Gusty, as her mother calls her, driven from your mind all thoughts of your old friend? You used to care for me, Teddy, in the good old days when we were all so happy together. Don't you like me a little now, and I so lonely and sad, and all the more so that I have to keep up and smile before these people, who, kind as they are, bore me with their vulgarities? Say, Teddy, are you angry with me?"

As she talked Daisy had put her hand on that of Lord Hardy, who once would have thrilled at its touch, but who now shrank from it as something poisonous. He knew the woman so thoroughly that nothing she could do or say would in the least affect him now, and when she asked if he were angry with her, he replied:

"Not angry, no--but, Mrs. McPherson--"

"Oh, Teddy, now I know you hate me when you call me Mrs. McPherson," Daisy sobbed, and he continued:

"Well, Daisy, then, if that suits you better, I am not angry, but you must know that we can never again be to each other what we were in the days when I was foolish enough to follow where you led, even to my ruin. All that is past, and I will not reproach you more; but, Daisy, I must speak one word of warning. I owe so much to these kind people, whose vulgarities bore you, but do not prevent you from accepting their hospitality. I am not blind to what you are doing."

"And what am I doing?" Daisy asked, and he replied: "Making a fool of a boy, for mercenary purposes of your own. I have seen it ever since we left Liverpool and I tell you I will not allow it, and if you persist in luring Allen to your side on all occasions, and throw over him the glamour of your charms, the family shall know all I know of your past life, even if it compromises me with you. They think you pure and good. What would they say if they knew you to be a professional gambler, an adventuress about whom men jest and smile derisively, even while they flatter and admire you in a certain way? Bad, in the common acceptation of the word, you may not be, but your womanhood is certainly soiled, and you are not a fit associate for a young, susceptible man, or for an innocent girl. If you were a true woman you would have gone home at once, to your daughter, who, rumor says, is as sweet and lovely as an angel. Go back now to her, and by fulfilling the duties of a mother try to retrieve the past. It is not impossible. I do not mean to be harsh, and hardly know why I have said all this to you, except it were to save Allen Browne, who is each day becoming more and more in love with you."

"In love with me! A woman old enough to be his mother! Absurd!" Daisy exclaimed, adding scornfully: "Thanks for your lecture, which shall not be lost on me. I have no wish to prolong my stay in this stupid place, and only wish I had never come here; and since my presence is so distastful to you, I will go at once and leave you to prosecute your suit with the fair Augusta, wishing you joy with your Yankee bride and her refined family. Shall you invite them to your home in Ireland? If so, may I be there to see! _Addio!_" and with a mocking courtsey she left the room, and going to her chamber wrote to Bessie that she was coming home immediately. Daisy had lost her game, and she knew it. She had nothing to expect from Miss McPherson, nothing from Lord Hardy, and as her deep mourning prevented Mrs. Browne from giving the party she had talked about so much, she might better be in Europe, she thought, and accordingly she acquainted her hostess with her decision. There was a faint protest on the part of Mrs. Browne, but only a faint one, for she was beginning to be a little afraid of her fair visitor, whom Augusta disliked thoroughly. Only Allen was sorry, for the wily woman had stirred his boyish heart to its very depths, and when at last he said good-by to her, and stood until the train which bore her away was out of sight, he felt, perhaps, as keen a pang of regret as a young man of twenty-two ever felt for a woman many years his senior.

Mr. Browne accompanied her to New York, and saw her on board the ship, and on his return home reported that he had left her in the cabin "a smellin' of and admirin' a basket of flowers most as big as herself, which she said a very dear friend had ordered sent to her with his love."

"She didn't say who 'twas," he continued, "and I didn't ask her, but I thought 'fool and his money soon parted,' for they'd smell awful in a day or two, and be flung into the sea. She giv' me one of the posies for Allen. I guess it's pretty well jammed, for I chucked it into my vest pocket; here it is," and he handed a faded rosebud to Allen, whose face was very red, and whose eyes, as they met those of Lord Hardy, betrayed the fact that he was the very dear friend who had ordered the flowers as his farewell to Daisy.