“Upon my word, I did not know you had so much vim.  You are a regular little spit-fire,” Archie said, regarding her intently; then after a pause, he added:  “What am I going to do?  I am sure I don’t know, unless I marry you and let you take care of me!  I believe you could do it.”

The hands which had been pressed on Daisy’s hips met suddenly together in a quick, nervous clasp, while there came over the girl’s face a look of wonder and surprise, and evident perplexity.  Although Daisy was much older than her years in some things, the idea of marrying Archibald McPherson, or any one else, had never entered her mind.

Now, however, she was conscious of a new feeling, which she could not define, and after regarding him fixedly for a moment, without any apparent consciousness, she answered in a very matter of fact way: 

“I believe I could take care of you—­somehow!”

“I know you could; so, suppose we call it a bargain,” Archie said, but before Daisy could reply Lady Jane’s maid appeared coming down the broad walk.

Stopping in front of the girl and boy, and merely noticing the former by a supercilious stare, she said to the latter interrogatively: 

“Mr. Archibald McPherson?”

“Present!” he answered, with a comical look at Daisy, on whom it was lost, for she was admiring the smart cap and pink ribbons of the maid, who said: 

“If you are Mr. Archibald, your father wishes to see you.  He said I was to fetch you directly.”

Rising slowly Archie shook himself together, and started for the house, while Daisy looked after him with a new and thoughtful expression on her face.

“Archie!” she called at last.  “Tell Dorothy I shall not come to help her with the dishes.  I have changed my mind.  I do not want the shilling.”

“All right,” was Archie’s response, as he walked on never dreaming that he had that morning sown the first germ of the ambition which was to overshadow all Daisy Allen’s future life, and bear fruit a hundred-fold.

CHAPTER II.

THE McPHERSONS.

The room in which Hugh McPherson was lying was the largest, and coolest, and best furnished in the house, for since he had been confined to his bed Dorothy had brought into it everything she thought would make it more attractive and endurable to the fastidious invalid, who, on the June morning when his son was in the garden talking to Daisy Allen, was propped upon pillows scarcely whiter than his thin, worn face, and was speaking of Archie to his brother John, who was standing before him with folded arms, and a gloomy, troubled expression on his face.  Just across the room, by an open window, sat Lady Jane, pretending to rearrange a bowl of roses on the table near her, but listening intently to the conversation between the two brothers.