Chapter 18

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_ CHAPTER XVIII 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. _

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