in love with married life, it was natural that, as her father, I should take advantage of the laws of the State in which I live, especially as Tom is growing rich so fast.  On the whole, I have done a good thing.  Daisy is free, with ten thousand dollars that Thornton settled on her, for, of course, I shall prevent her giving that back, as she is determined to do, saying it is not hers, and she will not keep it.  It is hers, and she shall keep it, and Tom will be a millionaire if that gold mine proves as great a success as it seems now to be, and I can manage Tom, and, as I said before, I’ve done a nice thing after all.

Extract 2nd—­Miss Thornton’s.

June 30, 18—.

To-day, for the first time, we have hopes that my brother will live; but, oh! how near he has been to the gates of death since that night when he came back to us from the West, with a fearful look on his face and a cruel stab in his heart.  I say us, for Julia Hamilton has been with me all through the dreadful days and nights when I watched to see Guy’s life go out and know I was left alone.  She was with me when I was getting ready for Daisy and waiting for Guy to bring her home—­not to Elmwood—­that dear old place is sold and strangers walk the rooms I love so well—­but here to the brown cottage on the hill, which, if I had never had Elmwood, would seem so pleasant to me.

And it is pleasant here, especially in Daisy’s room, which we shall never use, for the door is shut and bolted, and it seems each time I pass it as if a dead body were inside.  Had Guy died I would have laid him there and sent for that false creature to come and see her work.  I promised her so much, but not from any love, for my heart was full of bitterness that night when I turned her from the door out into the rain.  I shall never tell Guy that—­never, lest he should soften toward her, and I would not have her here again for all the world contains.  And yet I did like her, and was looking forward to her return with a good deal of pleasure.  Julia had spoken many a kind word for her, had pleaded her extreme youth as an excuse for her faults, and had led me to hope for better things when time had matured her somewhat and she had become accustomed to our new mode of life.

And so I hoped and waited for her and Guy, and wondered I did not hear from him, and felt so glad and happy when I received the telegram, “Shall be home to-night.”  It was a bright day in May, but the evening set in cool, with a feeling of rain in the air, and I had a fire kindled in the parlor and in Daisy’s room, for I remembered how she used to crouch on the rug before the grate and watch the blaze floating up the chimney with all the eagerness of a child.  Then, although it hurt me sorely, I went to Simpson, who bought our carriage, and asked that it might be sent to the station so that Daisy should not feel the difference at once.  And Jerry, our old coachman, went with it and waited there just as Julia and I waited at home, for Julia had promised to stay a few weeks and see what Daisy was like.