"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.