"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."