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 later exclaiming:
"I knows where it tum from, I do. My sake-name, Miss Mac-Dolly, send it, see did. I writ and ask her would see, an' see 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 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:
"Darling little _sake-name_ _Daisy_:--Your letter made Miss Mack-Dolly 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
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 white, 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 post-mark, she felt a keen pang of disappointment in finding only a few lines from Julia, who expressed her own and little Daisy's thanks for the beautiful Christmas box, and signed herself: