"Yes, I suppose I do, but that can't be helped; a promise is a promise."
"Who is to prevent it?" he exclaimed impatiently. "I say it shall be helped."
There was not time for further rhapsodies. Aunt Hepsy appeared with a telegram, calling Daisy home; and home she went next day, leaving Mr. John Smith in despair. In vain he laid siege to Aunt Hepzibah and Uncle Reuben; they could not help him.
Then, in a mighty wrath, he too went home, and desperately resolved to have it out with the Thornton girl, one way or the other; but not "the other" if Daisy could be brought to terms.
It was easy travelling where the way was all prepared. So a lovely moonlight evening found him in Squire Thornton's parlor. In a few moments there floated down to him from the invisible upper regions a cloud of blue muslin, and the laughing face of Daisy Merrifield was before him.
"Oh, Daisy, what a surprise! and how sweet you are!" as impulsively he strained her to his heart. "What joy to find you here!"
"Don't crush my dress," she said, righting up the ruffles; "it's new. Yes, I am here. Didn't you come to see me?"
"No--that is--I came to see Miss Thornton," and his face fell.
"There is no Miss Thornton," she said, her dimples playing mischievously. "It is only _I_--_now_ don't you know?"
"But how is it? I was told--I understood--"
"Pshaw! you stupid!" she said, with a bewitching pout, "if you had been a little more civil, you would have known that I am Mrs. Thornton's daughter--not Mr. Thornton's; that mamma is mamma, but papa isn't papa, and--"
But in an ecstacy of surprise and joy the rest of her sentence was entirely smothered.
"And you knew from the first?" he asked, reproachfully.
"Not from the first, but almost. They were all in the plot. I meant to snub you outright, only--well, somehow you didn't look as horrid as you really were! The 'John Smith' was almost too much for me, but I stood it. Then when the letter came--it was well for you I had seen you under the tree. So you wouldn't marry the heiress," she said, archly. "I did my very best to teach you a lesson, young man. Have you learned it?"
The answer was fervently though silently given the merry, rosy, smiling lips.
They called her Treesa. She was not young. That she had ever been was hard to realize. Whatever her childhood, and however the years had brought her up to woman's estate, there was no footprint upon the worn face of the gladsome time we call youth. No light in the eye of other and happier days. No echo in the quiet heart, of bounding pulses, or ever a sweet enthusiasm. The treadmill of duty in life's most trivial task, enthralled her every faculty. Her daily round was in a large hotel--an arena of toil circumscribed by four brick walls. Her domain was the parlor floor; that sacred area of rosy vistas and costly suites, where she was as proud to tread as a king in his royal glory. Where beauty and fashion made for her a panorama of short glimpses amid pauses of broom and duster.