MISS MCDONALD
She took that name again, and with it, also, Margaret, feeling that
Daisy was far too girlish an appellation for one who clad herself almost
in widow's weeds, and felt, when she stood at poor Tom's grave, more
wretched and desolate than many a wife has felt when her husband was put
from her sight.
Tom had meant to make her parents independent of her so that she need
not have them with her unless she chose to do so, for, knowing Mr.
McDonald as he did, he thought she would be happier alone, but God so
ordered it that within three months after poor Tom's death they made
another grave beside his, and Daisy and her mother were alone.
It was spring-time now, and the two desolate women bade adieu to their
dead, and made their way to England, and from there to Scotland, where
among the heather hills they passed the summer in the utmost seclusion.
Here Daisy had ample time for thought, which dwelt mostly upon the past
and the happiness she cast away when she consented to the sundering of
the tie which had bound her to Guy Thornton.
"Oh, how could I have been so foolish and so weak," she said, as, with
intense contempt for herself, she read over the journal she had kept at
Elmwood during the first weeks of her married life.
Guy had said it would be pleasant for her to refer to its pages in after
years, little dreaming with what sore anguish of heart poor Daisy would
one day weep over the senseless things recorded there.
"Can it be I was ever that silly little fool?" she said bitterly, as she
finished her journal. "And how could Guy love me as 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 how
much I love you now; nor can I feel it wrong to do so, even though I
never hope to see your face again. Guy, Guy, the world is so desolate,
and I am young, only twenty-three, and life is so long and dreary with
nothing to live for or to do. I wish almost that I were dead like Tom,
only I dare not think I should go to 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 golden
September day, when there came a turning point in her life, and she
found there was something to do.
There was no regular service that Sunday in the church where she usually
attended, and as the day was fine and she was far too restless to remain
at home, she proposed to her mother that they walk to a little chapel
about a mile away, where a young Presbyterian clergyman was to preach.
She had heard much of his eloquence, and as his name was McDonald, he
might possibly be some distant relative. Inasmuch as her father was of
Scotch descent she felt a double interest in him, and with her mother
was among the first who entered the little, humble building and took a
seat upon one of the hard, uncomfortable benches near the pulpit.
The speaker was young--about Tom's age--and with a look on his florid
face and a sound in his voice so like that of the dead man that Daisy
half started to her feet when he first took his stand in front of her
and announced the opening hymn. His text was: "Why stand ye here all the
day idle?" and so well did he handle it, and so forcible were his
gestures and eloquent his style of delivery, that Daisy listened to him
spellbound, her eyes fixed intently upon his glowing face and her ears
drinking in every word he uttered.
After dwelling for a time upon the loiterers in God's vineyard, the
idlers from choice, who worked not for lack of an inclination to do so,
he spoke next of the class whose whole life was a weariness for want of
something to do, and to these he said: "Have you never read how, when
the disciples rebuked the grateful woman for wasting upon her Master's
head what might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the
poor, Jesus said unto them, 'The poor ye have with you always,' and is
it not so, my hearers? Are there no poor at your door to be fed, no
hungry little ones to be cared for out of the abundance which God has
only loaned you for this purpose? Are there no wretched homes which you
can make happier, no aching hearts which a kind word would cheer?
Remember there is a blessing pronounced for even the cup of cold water,
and how much greater shall be the reward of those who, forgetting
themselves, seek the good of others and turn not away from the needy and
the desolate. See to it, then, you to whom God has given much. See to it
that you sit not down in idle ease, wasting upon yourself alone the
goods designed for others, for to whom much is given of him much shall
be required."
Attracted, perhaps, by the deep black of Daisy's attire, or the
something about her which marked her as different from the mass of his
hearers, the speaker had seemed to address the last of his remarks
directly to her, and had the dead Tom risen from his grave and spoken
with her face to face, she could hardly have been more affected than she
was. The resemblance was so striking and the voice so like her cousin's
that she felt as if she had received a message direct from him; or, if
not from him, she surely had from God, whose almoner she henceforth
would be.
That day was the beginning of a new life to her. Thenceforth there must
be no more repining; no more idle, listless days, no more wishing for
something to do. There was work all around her, and she found it and did
it with a will--first, from a sense of duty, and at last for the real
pleasure it afforded her to carry joy and gladness to the homes where
want and sorrow had sat so long.
Hearing that there were sickness and destitution among the miners in
Peru, where her possessions were, she went early in November, and many a
wretched heart rejoiced because of her, and many a lip blessed the
beautiful lady whose coming among them was productive of so much good.
Better dwellings, better wages, a church, a schoolhouse followed in her
footsteps, and then, when everything there seemed in good working order,
there came over her a longing for her native country, and the next
autumn found her in New York, where in a short space of time everybody
knew of the beautiful Miss McDonald, who was a millionaire and who owned
the fine house and grounds in the upper part of the city not far from
the Park.
Here society claimed her again, and Daisy, who had no morbid fancies
now, yielded in part to its claims and became, if not a belle, a
favorite, whose praises were in every mouth. But chiefly was she known
and loved by the poor and the despised whom she daily visited, and to
whom her presence was like the presence of an angel.
"You do look lovely and sing so sweet; I know there's nothing nicer in
heaven," said a little piece of deformity to her one day as it lay
dying in her arms. "I'se goin' to heaven, which I shouldn't have done if
you'se hadn't gin me the nice bun and told me of Jesus. I loves him now,
and I'll tell him how you bringed me to him."
Such was the testimony of one dying child, and it was dearer to Daisy
than all the words of flattery ever poured into her ear. As she had
brought that little child to God, so she would bring others, and she
made her work among the children especially, finding there her best
encouragement and greatest success.
Once when Guy Thornton chanced to be in the city and driving in the
Park, he saw a singular sight--a pair of splendid bays arching their
graceful necks proudly, their silver-tipped harness flashing in the
sunlight, and their beautiful mistress radiant with happiness as she sat
in her large open carriage, not in the midst of gayly dressed friends,
but amid a group of poorly clad, pale-faced little ones, to whom the
Park was a paradise, and she was the presiding angel.
"Look--that's Miss McDonald," Guy's friend said to him, "the greatest
heiress in New York, and I reckon the one who does the most good. Why,
she supports more old people and children and runs more ragged schools
than any half-dozen men in the city, and I don't suppose there's a den
in New York where she has not been, and never once, I'm told, was she
insulted, for the vilest of them stand between her and harm. Once a
miscreant on Avenue A knocked a boy down for accidentally stepping in a
pool of water and sprinkling her white dress in passing. Friday nights
she has a reception for these people, and you ought to see how well they
behave. At first they were noisy and rough, and she had to have the
police, but now they are quiet and orderly as you please. Perhaps you'd
like to go to one. I know Miss McDonald, and will take you with me."
Guy said he should not be in town on Friday, as he must return to
Cuylerville the next day, and with a feeling he could not quite analyze,
he turned to look at the turnout which always excited so much attention.
But it was not so much at the handsome bays and the bevy of
queer-looking children he gazed as at the little lady in their midst,
clad in velvet and ermine, with a long white feather falling among the
curls of her bright hair. When Daisy first entered upon her new life she
had affected a nun-like garb as one most appropriate, but after a little
child said to her once, "I'se don't like your black gown all the time. I
likes sumptin' bright and pretty," she changed her mind and gave freer
scope to her natural good taste and love of what was becoming. And the
result showed the wisdom of the change, for the children and inmates of
the dens she visited, accustomed only to the squalor and ugliness of
their surroundings, hailed her more rapturously than they had done
before, and were never weary of talking of the beautiful woman who was
not afraid to wear her pretty clothes into their wretched houses, which,
lest she should soil and defile them, gradually grew more clean and tidy
for her sake.
"It wasn't for the likes of them gownds to trail through sich truck,"
Bridget O'Donohue said, and so, on the days when Daisy was expected, she
scrubbed the floor, which, until Daisy's advent had not known water for
years, and rubbed and polished the one wooden chair kept sacred for the
lady's use.
Other women, too, caught Biddy's spirit and scrubbed their floors and
their children's faces on the day when Miss McDonald was expected to
call, and when she came her silk dress and pretty shawl were watched
narrowly lest by some chance a speck of dirt should fasten on them, and
her becoming dress and handsome face were commented on and remembered as
some fine show which had been seen for nothing. Especially did the
children like her in her bright dress, and the velvet and ermine in
which she was clad when Guy met her in the Park were worn more for their
sakes than for the gaze of those to whom such things were no novelties.
To Guy she looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her before, and
there was in his heart a smothered feeling as of a want of something
lost, as her carriage disappeared from view and he lost sight of the
fair face and form which had once been his own.
The world was going well with Guy, for though Dick Trevylian had paid no
part of the hundred thousand dollars, and he still lived in the brown
cottage on the hill, he was steadily working his way to competency, if
not to wealth. His profession as a lawyer, which he had resumed, yielded
him a remunerative income, while his contributions to different
magazines were much sought after, so that to all human appearance he was
prosperous and happy. Prosperous in his business, and happy in his wife
and little ones, for there was now a second child, a baby Guy of six
weeks old, and when on his return from New York the father bent over the
cradle of his boy and kissed his baby face, that image seen in the Park
seemed to fade away, and the caresses he gave to Julia had in them no
faithlessness or insincerity. She was a noble woman, and had made him a
good wife, and he loved her truly, though with a different, less
absorbing, less ecstatic love than he had given to Daisy. But he did not
tell her of Miss McDonald. Indeed, that name was never spoken now, nor
was any reference ever made to her except when little Daisy asked where
was the lady for whom she was named, and why she did not send her a
doll.
"I hardly think she knows there is such a chit as you," Guy said to her
once, when sorely pressed on the subject, and then the child wondered
how that could be, and wished she was big enough to write her a letter
and ask her to come and see her.
Every day after that little Daisy played "make b'lieve Miss McDolly" was
there, said McDolly being represented by a bundle of shawls tied up to
look like a figure and seated in a chair. At last there came to the
cottage a friend of Julia's, a young lady from New York, who knew Daisy,
and who, while visiting in Cuylerville, accidentally learned that she
was the divorced wife of whose existence she knew, but of whom she had
never spoken to Mrs. Thornton. Hearing the little one talking one day to
Miss McDolly and asking her why she never wrote nor sent a "sing" to
her sake-name, the young lady said:
"Why don't you send Miss McDonald a letter? You tell me what to say and
I'll write it down for you, but don't let mamma know till you see if you
get anything."
The little girl's fancy was caught at once with the idea, and the
following letter was the result:
"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 'ittle
brother is Guy, too--only he's a baby, and vomits up his dinner and ties
awfully sometimes; an' I knows anoder 'ittle girl named for somebody who
dives her 'sings,' a whole lot, an' why doesn't youse dive me some, when
I'se your sake-name, an' loves you ever so much, and why'se you never
turn here to see me. I wish you would. I ask papa is you pretty, an' he
tell me yes, bootiful, an' every night I p'ays for you and say God bress
papa an' mam-ma, an' auntie, and Miss McDolly, and 'ittle brodder, an'
make Daisy a dood dirl, and have Miss McDolly send her sumptin' for
Tissmas, for Christ's sake. An' I wants a turly headed doll that ties
and suts her eyes when she does to seep, and wears a shash and a
pairesol, and anodder bigger dolly to be her mam-ma and pank her when
she'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 stenshun
table, an' 'ittle bedstead, an' yuffled seets, an' pillars, an' blue
silk kilt, an' ever so many sings which papa cannot buy, 'cause he
hasn't dot the money. Vill you send them, Miss McDolly, pese, an' your
likeness, too. I wants to see how you looks. My mam-ma is pretty, with
black hair an' eyes, but she's awful old--I dess. How old is you? Papa's
hair is some dray, an' his viskers, too. My eyes is bue.
"Yours respectfully,
DAISY THORNTON."
* * * * *
Miss McDonald had been shopping since ten in the morning, and her
carriage had stood before the dry-goods stores, and toy-shops, and candy
stores, while bundle after bundle had been deposited on the cushions,
and others ordered to be sent. But she was nearly through now, and just
as it was beginning to grow dark in the streets she bade her coachman
drive home, where dinner was waiting for her in the dining room, and
her mother was waiting in the parlor. Mrs. McDonald was not very well,
and had kept her room all day, but she was better that night, and came
down to dine with her daughter. The December wind was cold and raw, and
a few snowflakes fell on Daisy's hat and cloak as she ran up the steps
and entered the warm, bright room, which seemed so pleasant when
contrasted with the dreariness without.
"Oh, how nice this is, and how tired and cold I am!" she said, as she
bent over the blazing fire.
"Are you through with your shopping?" Mrs. McDonald asked, in a
half-querulous tone, as if she did not altogether approve of her
daughter's acts.
"Yes, all through, except a shawl for old Sarah Mackie and a few more
toys for Biddy Warren's blind boy," Daisy said, and her mother replied:
"Well, I'm sure I shall be glad for your sake when it is over. You'll
make yourself sick, and you are nearly worn out now, remembering
everybody in New York."
"Not quite everybody, mother," Daisy rejoined cheerfully; "only those
whom everybody forgets--the poor, whom we have with us always. Don't
you remember the text and the little kirk where we heard it preached
from? But come--dinner is ready, and I am hungry, I assure you."
She led the way to the handsome dining room, and took her seat at the
table, looking, in her dark street dress, as her mother had said, pale
and worn, as if the shopping had been very hard upon her. And yet it was
not so much the fatigue of the day which affected her as the remembrance
of a past she did not often dare to recall.
It was at Christmas time years ago that she first met with Guy, and all
the day long, as she turned over piles of shawls and delaines and
flannels, or ordered packages of candy and bonbons and dollies by the
dozen, her thoughts had been with Guy and the time she met him at Leiter
and Field's and he walked home with her. It seemed to her years and
years ago, and the idea of having lived so long made her feel old, and
tired, and worn. But the nice dinner and the cheer of the room revived
her, and her face looked brighter and more rested when she returned to
the parlor and began to show her mother her purchases.
Daisy did not receive many letters except on business, and as these
usually came in the morning she did not think to ask if the postman had
left her anything; and so it was not until her mother had retired and
she was about going to her own room that she saw a letter lying on the
hall-stand. Miss Barker, who had instigated the letter, had never
written to her more than once or twice, and then only short notes, and
she did not recognize the handwriting at once. But she saw it was
postmarked Cuylerville, and a sick, faint sensation crept over her as
she wondered who had sent it, and if it contained news of Guy. It was
long since she had heard of him--not, in fact, since poor Tom's death,
and she knew nothing of the little girl called for herself, and thus had
no suspicion of the terrible shock awaiting her, when at last she broke
the seal. Miss Barker had written a few explanatory lines, which were as
follows:
"CUYLERVILLE, Dec., 18--.
"DEAR MISS MCDONALD--Since saying good-by to you last June, and
going off to the mountains and seaside, while you like a good Samaritan
stayed in the hot city to look after 'your people,' I have flitted
hither and thither until at last I floated out to Cuylerville to visit
Mrs. Guy Thornton, who is a friend and former schoolmate of mine.
Here--not in the house, but in town--I have heard a story which
surprised me not a little, and I now better understand that sad look I
have so often seen on your sweet face without at all suspecting the
cause.
"Dear friend, pardon me, won't you, for the liberty I have taken since
knowing your secret? You would, I am sure, if you only knew what a dear,
darling little creature Mr. Thornton's eldest child is. Did you know he
had called her Daisy for you? He has, and with her blue eyes and bright
auburn hair, she might pass for your very own, with the exception of her
nose, which is decidedly retroussé. She is three years old, and the most
precocious little witch you ever saw. What think you of her making up a
bundle of shawls and aprons and christening it Miss McDolly, her name
for you, and talking to it as if it were really the famous and beautiful
woman she fancies it to be? She is your 'sake-name,' she says, and
before I knew the facts of the case, I was greatly amused by her talk to
the bundle of shawls which she reproached for never having sent her
anything. When I asked Julia (that's Mrs. Thornton) who Miss McDolly
was, she merely answered, 'The lady for whom Daisy was named,' and that
was all I knew until the gossips enlightened me, when, without a word to
anyone, I resolved upon a liberty which I thought I could venture to
take with you. I suggested the letter which I inclose and which I wrote
exactly as the words came from the little lady's lips. Neither Mr.
Thornton nor his wife know aught of the letter, nor will they unless you
respond, for the child will keep her own counsel, I am well assured.
"Again forgive me if I have done wrong, and believe me, as ever,
"Yours, sincerely,
"ELLA BARKER."
Daisy's face was as pale as ashes as she read Miss Barker's letter, and
then snatching up the other, devoured its contents almost at a glance,
while her breath came in panting gasps and her heart seemed trying to
burst through her throat. She could neither move nor cry out for a
moment, but she sat like one turned into stone with that sense of
suffocation oppressing her, and that horrible pain in her heart. She had
thought the grave was closed, the old wound healed by time and silence;
and now a little child had torn it open, and it was bleeding and
throbbing again with a pang such as she had never felt before, while
there crept over her such a feeling of desolation and loneliness, a
want of something unpossessed, as few have ever experienced.
But for her own foolishness that sweet little child might have been
hers, she thought, as her heart went after the little one with an
indescribable yearning which made her stretch out her arms as if to take
the baby to her bosom and hold it there forever. Guy had called it for
her, and that touched her more than anything else. He had not forgotten
her then. She had never supposed he had, but to be thus assured of it
was very sweet, and as she thought of it and read again little Daisy's
letter, the tightness about her heart and the choking sensation in her
throat began to give way, and one after another the great tears rolled
down her cheeks, slowly at first, but gradually faster and faster, until
they fell in torrents and a tempest of sobs shook her slight frame as
with her head bowed upon her dressing-table she gave vent to her grief.
It seemed to her she never could stop crying or grow calm again, for as
often as she thought of the touching words, "I p'ays for you," there
came a fresh burst of sobs and tears, until at last nature was
exhausted, and with a low moan Daisy sank upon her knees and tried to
pray, the words which first sprang to her lips framing themselves into
thanks that somewhere in the world there was one who prayed for her and
loved her, too, even though the love might have for its object merely
dolls and candies and toys. And these the child should have in such
abundance, and Miss McDonald found herself longing for the morrow in
which to begin again the shopping she had thought was nearly ended.
It was in vain next day that her mother remonstrated against her going
out, pleading her white, haggard face and the rawness of the day. Daisy
was not to be detained at home, and before ten o'clock she was down on
Broadway, and the dolly with the "shash" and "pairesol" which she had
seen the day before under its glass case was hers for twenty-five
dollars, and the plainer bit of china, who was to be dollie's mother and
perform the parental duty of "panking her when she was naughty," was
also purchased, and the dishes and the table and stove and bedstead,
with ruffled sheets and pillow-cases and blue satin spread and the
washboard and clothes bars and tiny wringer, with divers others toys,
were bought with a disregard of expense which made Miss McDonald a
wonder to those who waited on her. Such a Christmas box was seldom sent
to a child as that which Daisy packed in her room that night, with her
mother looking on and wondering what Sunday-school was to be the
recipient of all those costly presents and suggesting that cheaper
articles would have answered just as well.
Everything the child had asked for was there except the picture. That
Daisy dared not send, lest it should look too much like thrusting
herself upon Guy's notice and wound Julia, his wife.
Daisy was strangely pitiful in her thoughts of Julia, who would in her
turn have pitied her for her delusion could she have known how sure she
was that but for the tardiness of that letter Guy would have chosen his
first love in preference to any other.
And it was well that each believed herself first in the affection of the
man to whom Daisy wanted so much to send something as a proof of her
unalterable love. They were living still in the brown cottage; they were
not able to buy Elmwood back. Oh, if she only dared to do it, and could
do it, how gladly her Christmas gift should be the handsome place which
they had been so proud of! But that would hardly do; Guy might not like
to be so much indebted to her; he was proud and sensitive in many
points, and so she abandoned the plan for the present, thinking that by
and by she would purchase and hold it as a gift to her namesake on her
bridal day. That will be better, she said, as she put the last article
in the box and saw it leave the door, directed to Guy Thornton's care.
* * * * *
Great was the surprise at the brown cottage, when, on the very night
before Christmas, the box arrived and was deposited in the dining room,
where Guy and Julia, Miss Barker and Daisy gathered eagerly around it,
the 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 every
knot in the string which his wife in her impatience would have cut at
once. "What does the child mean? Do you know, Julia?"
"I do. I'll explain," Miss Barker said, and in as few words as possible
she told what she had done, while Julia listened with a very grave face,
and Guy was pale even to his lips as he went on untying the string and
opening the box.
There was a letter lying on the top which he handed to Julia, who
steadied her voice to read aloud:
"NEW YORK, December 22, 18--.
"DARLING LITTLE SAKE-NAME DAISY: Your letter made Miss McDolly
very happy, and she is so glad to send you the doll with a shash, and
the other toys. Write to me again and tell me if they suit you. God
bless you, sweet little one, is the prayer of
"MISS MCDONALD."
After that the grave look left Julia's face, and Guy was not quite so
pale, as he took out one after another the articles which little Daisy
hailed with rapturous shouts and exclamations of delight.
"Oh, isn't she dood, and don't you love her, papa?" she said, while Guy
replied:
"Yes, it was certainly very kind in her, and generous. No other little
girl in town will have such a box as this."
He was very pale, and there was a strange look in his eyes, but his
voice was perfectly natural as he spoke, and one who knew nothing of his
former relations to Miss McDonald would never have suspected how his
whole soul was moved by this gift to his little daughter.
"You must write and thank her," he said to Julia, who, knowing that this
was proper, assented without a word, and when on the morning after
Christmas Miss McDonald opened with trembling hands the envelope bearing
the Cuylerville postmark, she felt a keen pang of disappointment in
finding only a few lines from Julia expressive of her own and little
Daisy's thanks for the beautiful Christmas box, "which made our little
girl 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 to
bear?" she whispered, and her lip quivered a little, and the tears
sprang to her eyes as she remembered all that lay between the present
and the time when she had been Mrs. Guy Thornton.
She was Miss McDonald now, and Guy was another woman's husband, and with
a bitter pain in her heart, she put away Julia's letter, saying as she
did so, "And that's the end of that."
The box business had not resulted just as she hoped it would. She had
thought Guy would write himself, and by some word or allusion assure her
of his remembrance, but instead there had come to her a few perfectly
polite and well-expressed lines from Julia, who had the impertinence to
sign herself Mrs. Guy Thornton! It was rather hard and sorely
disappointing, and for many days Miss McDonald's face was very white and
sad, and both the old and young whom she visited as usual wondered what
had come over the beautiful lady to make her "so pale and sorry."