The first week of Daisy's stay at Glengrove passed quickly. She was
beginning to feel quite at home with Mrs. Glenn and Eve, but Bessie
and Gertie held aloof from her. She was beginning to believe she never
would be able to win her way to their hearts. Eve--warm-hearted,
impulsive Eve--took to her at once.
"You are just the kind of a girl I like, Daisy," said Eve, twirling
one of her soft gold curls caressingly around her finger; "and if I
were a handsome young man, instead of a girl, I should fall
straightway in love with you. Why, what are you blushing so for?"
cried Eve. "Don't you like to talk about love and lovers?"
"No," said Daisy, in a low voice, a distressed look creeping into her
blue eyes. "If you please, Eve, I'd rather not talk about such
things."
"You are certainly a funny girl," said Eve, wonderingly. "Why, do you
know all the handsome young fellows around here have fallen deeply in
love with you, and have just been besieging both Bess and Gertie for
an introduction to you."
No laughing rejoinder came from Daisy's red lips. There was an anxious
look in her eyes. Ah! this, then, accounted for the growing coldness
with which the two sisters greeted her.
"You do not seem enough interested to even ask who they are," said
Eve, disappointedly. "I suppose you have never heard we have some
of the handsomest gentlemen around here to be met with in the
whole South--or in the North either, for that matter," said Eve,
enthusiastically. "Wait until you have seen some of them."
How little she knew the girl's heart and soul was bound up in Rex,
whom she told herself she was never again to see.
"Do you see that large gray, stone house yonder, whose turrets you
can just see beyond those trees?" asked Eve, suddenly, a mischievous
light dancing in her merry hazel eyes.
"Yes," replied Daisy. "I have a fine view of it from my window
upstairs. I have seen a little child swinging to and fro in a hammock
beneath the trees. Poor little thing, she uses a crutch. Is she
lame?"
"Yes," replied Eve, "that's little Birdie; she's lame. I do not want
to talk about her but about her brother. Oh, he is perfectly
splendid!" declared Eve, enthusiastically, "and rich, too. Why, he
owns I don't know how many cotton plantations and orange groves, and
he is--oh--so handsome! You must take care you do not fall in love
with him. All the girls do. If you did not, you would be a great
exception; you could scarcely help caring for him, he is so winning
and so nice," said Eve, blushing furiously.
How poor little Daisy's heart longed for sympathy and consolation! Oh,
if she only dared tell Eve the great hidden sorrow that seemed eating
her heart away! She felt that she must unburden her heart to some one,
or it must surely break.
"Eve," she said, her little hands closing softly over the restless
brown one drumming a tattoo on the window-sill, and her golden head
drooping so close to Eve's, her curls mingled with her dark locks, "I
could never love any one in this world again. I loved once--it was the
sweetest, yet the most bitter, experience of my life. The same voice
that spoke tender words to me cruelly cast me from him. Yet I love him
still with all my heart. Do not talk to me of love, or lovers, Eve, I
can not bear it. The world will never hold but one face for me, and
that is the face of him who is lost to me forever."
"Oh, how delightfully romantic!" cried Eve. "I said to myself over and
over again there was some mystery in your life. I have seen such
strange shadows in your eyes, and your voice often had the sound of
tears in it. I do wish I could help you in some way," said Eve,
thoughtfully. "I'd give the world to set the matter straight for you.
What's his name, and where does he live?"
"I can not tell you," said Daisy, shaking her golden curls sadly.
"Oh, dear! then I do not see how I can help you," cried Eve.
"You can not," replied Daisy; "only keep my secret for me."
"I will," she cried, earnestly.
And as they parted, Eve resolved in her own mind to bring this truant
lover of Daisy's back to his old allegiance; but the first and most
important step was to discover his name.
Eve went directly to her own room, her brain whirling with a new plan,
which she meant to put into execution at once, while Daisy strolled on
through the grounds, choosing the less frequented paths. She wanted to
be all alone by herself to have a good cry. Somehow she felt so much
better for having made a partial confidante of Eve.
The sun was beginning to sink in the west; still Daisy walked on,
thinking of Rex. A little shrill piping voice falling suddenly upon
her ears caused her to stop voluntarily.
"Won't you please reach me my hat and crutch? I have dropped them on
your side of the fence."
Daisy glanced around, wondering in which direction the voice came
from.
"I am sitting on the high stone wall; come around on the other side of
that big tree and you will see me."
The face that looked down into Daisy's almost took her breath away for
a single instant, it was so like Rex's.
A bright, winning, childish face, framed in a mass of dark nut-brown
curls, and the brownest of large brown eyes.
"Certainly," said Daisy, stooping down with a strange unexplainable
thrill at her heart and picking up the wide-brimmed sun-hat and
crutch, which was unfortunately broken by the fall.
A low cry burst from the child's lips.
"Oh, my crutch is broken!" she cried, in dismay. "What shall I do? I
can not walk back to the house. I am lame!"
"Let me see if I can help you," said Daisy, scaling the stone wall
with the grace of a fawn. "Put your arms around my neck," she said,
"and cling very tight. I will soon have you down from your high perch;
never mind the crutch. I can carry you up to the porch; it is not very
far, and you are not heavy."
In a very few moments Daisy had the child down safely upon _terra
firma_.
"Thank you," said the child. "I know you are tired; we will rest a
moment, please, on this fallen log."
The touch of the little girl's hands, the glance of the soft brown
eyes, and the tone of her voice seemed to recall every word and glance
of Rex, and hold a strange fascination for her.
"I shall tell my mother and my brother how good you have been to me,
and they will thank you too. My name is Birdie; please tell me
yours."
"My name is Daisy Brooks," she answered.
Poor little girl-bride, there had been a time when she had whispered
to her heart that her name was Daisy Lyon; but that bright dream was
over now; she would never be aught else than--Daisy Brooks.
"Is your name really Daisy?" cried the little girl in a transport of
delight, scarcely catching the last name. "Why, that is the name my
brother loves best in the world. You have such a sweet face," said the
child, earnestly. "I would choose the name of some flower as just
suited to you. I should have thought of Lily, Rose, Pansy, or Violet,
but I should never have thought of anything one half so pretty as
Daisy; it just suits you."
All through her life Daisy felt that to be the sweetest compliment
ever paid her. Daisy laughed--the only happy laugh that had passed her
lips since she had met Rex that morning under the magnolia-tree.
"Shall I tell you what my brother said about daisies?"
"Yes, you may tell me, if you like," Daisy answered, observing the
child delighted to talk of her brother.
"He has been away for a long time," explained Birdie. "He only came
home last night, and I cried myself to sleep, I was so glad. You see,"
said the child, growing more confidential, and nestling closer to
Daisy's side, and opening wide her great brown eyes, "I was crying for
fear he would bring home a wife, and mamma was crying for fear he
wouldn't. I wrote him a letter all by myself once, and begged him not
to marry, but come home all alone, and you see he did," cried the
child, overjoyed. "When he answered my letter, he inclosed a little
pressed flower, with a golden heart and little white leaves around it,
saying: 'There is no flower like the daisy for me. I shall always
prize them as pearls beyond price.' I planted a whole bed of them
beneath his window, and I placed a fresh vase of them in his room,
mingled with some forget-me-nots, and when he saw them, he caught me
in his arms, and cried as though his heart would break."
If the white fleecy clouds in the blue sky, the murmuring sea, or the
silver-throated bobolink swinging in the green leafy bough above her
head, had only whispered to Daisy why he loved the flowers so well
which bore the name of daisy, how much misery might have been spared
two loving hearts! The gray, dusky shadows of twilight were creeping
up from the sea.
"Oh, see how late it is growing," cried Birdie, starting up in alarm.
"I am afraid you could not carry me up to the porch. If you could
only summon a servant, or--or--my brother."
For answer, Daisy raised the slight burden in her arms with a smile.
"I like you more than I can tell," said Birdie, laying her soft, pink,
dimpled cheek against Daisy's. "Won't you come often to the angle in
the stone wall? That is my favorite nook. I like to sit there and
watch the white sails glide by over the white crested waves."
"Yes," said Daisy, "I will come every day."
"Some time I may bring my brother with me; you must love him, too,
won't you?"
"I should love any one who had you for a sister," replied Daisy,
clasping the little figure she held still closer in her arms; adding,
in her heart: "You are so like him."
Birdie gave her such a hearty kiss, that the veil twined round her hat
tumbled about her face like a misty cloud.
"You must put me down while you fix your veil," said Birdie. "You can
not see with it so. There are huge stones in the path, you would
stumble and fall."
"So I shall," assented Daisy, as she placed the child down on the
soft, green grass.
At that instant swift, springy footsteps came hurriedly down the path,
and a voice, which seemed to pierce her very heart, called: "Birdie,
little Birdie, where are you?"
"Here, Brother Rex," called the child, holding out her arms to him
with eager delight. "Come here, Rex, and carry me; I have broken my
crutch."
For one brief instant the world seemed to stand still around poor,
hapless Daisy, the forsaken girl-bride. The wonder was that she did
not die, so great was her intense emotion. Rex was standing before
her--the handsome, passionate lover, who had married her on the
impulse of the moment; the man whom she loved with her whole heart, at
whose name she trembled, of whom she had made an idol in her girlish
heart, and worshiped--the lover who had vowed so earnestly he would
shield her forever from the cold, cruel world, who had sworn eternal
constancy, while the faithful gleaming stars watched him from the blue
sky overhead.
Yes, it was Rex! She could not see through the thick, misty veil, how
pale his face was in the gathering darkness. Oh, Heaven! how her
passionate little heart went out to him! How she longed, with a
passionate longing words could not tell, to touch his hand, or rest
her weary head on his breast.
Her brain whirled; she seemed, to live ages in those few moments.
Should she throw herself on her knees, and cry out to him, "Oh, Rex,
Rex, my darling! I am _not_ guilty! Listen to me, my love. Hear my
pleading--listen to my prayer! I am more sinned against than sinning.
My life has been as pure as an angel's--take me back to your heart, or
I shall die!"
"She has been so good to me, Rex," whispered Birdie, clinging to the
veil which covered Daisy's face. "I broke my crutch, and she has
carried me from the stone wall; won't you please thank her for me,
brother?"
Daisy's heart nearly stopped beating; she knew the eventful moment of
her life had come, when Rex, her handsome young husband, turned
courteously toward her, extending his hand with a winning smile.