“Poor Daisy, did she get very wet?  She is so delicate, you know.  I hope it did not make her sick.”

Oh, the love a man will feel for a woman, let her be ever so unworthy.  I cannot comprehend it.  And why should I—­an old maid like me, who never loved anyone but Guy?

AUGUST 30, ——.

In a roundabout way we have heard that Mr. McDonald is going away with his wife and daughter.  When the facts of the divorce were known they brought him into such disgrace with the citizens of Indianapolis that he thought it best to leave for a time till the storm blows over, and so they will go to South America, where there is a cousin Tom, who is growing rich very fast.  I cannot help certain thoughts coming into my mind any more than I can help being glad that Daisy is going out of the country.  Guy never mentions her now, and is getting to look and act quite like himself.  If only he could forget her we might be very happy again, as Heaven grant we may.

CHAPTER VII

FIVE YEARS LATER

“Married, this morning, at St. Paul’s Church, by the Rev. Dr. ——­, assisted by the rector, Guy Thornton, Esq., of Cuylerville, to Miss Julia Hamilton, of this city.”

Such was the notice which appeared in a daily Boston paper one lovely morning in September five years after the last entry in Miss Thornton’s journal.  Guy had reached the point at last when he could put Daisy from his heart and take another in her place.  He had never seen her or heard directly from her since the night she brought him the marriage settlement and tore it in pieces, thinking thus to give it to him beyond a doubt.  That this did not change the matter one whit he knew just as he knew she could not give him the ten thousand dollars settled upon her until she was of age.  She was of age now, and had been for a year or more, and, to say the truth, he had expected to hear from her when she was twenty-one.  To himself he had reasoned in this wise:  Her father told her that the tearing up that paper made no difference, that she was powerless of herself to act until she was of age, so she will wait quietly till then before making another effort.  And in his heart Guy thought how he would not take a penny from her, but would insist upon her keeping it.  Still he should respect her all the more for her sense of justice and generosity, he thought, and when her twenty-first birthday came and passed, and week after week went by, and brought no sign from Daisy, there was a pang in his heart and a look of disappointment on his face which did not pass away until October hung her gorgeous colors upon the hills of Cuylerville, and Julia Hamilton came to the Brown Cottage to spend a few weeks with his sister.