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.”

CHAPTER XI

AT SARATOGA

There were no more letters from Mrs. Guy Thornton until the next Christmas time, when another box went to little Daisy, and was acknowledged as before.  Then another year glided by, with a third box to Daisy, and then one summer afternoon in August there came to Saratoga a gay party from New York, and the clerk at Congress Hall registered, with other names, that of Miss McDonald.  Indeed, it seemed to be her party, or at least she was its center, and the one to whom the others deferred as to their head.  Daisy was in perfect health that summer, and in unusually good spirits, and when in the evening, yielding to the entreaties of her friends, she entered the ball-room, clad in flowing, gauzy robes of blue and white, with costly jewels on her neck and arms, she took all hearts by storm, and was acknowledged at once as the star and belle of the evening.  She did not dance—­she rarely did that now—­but after a short promenade through the room she took a seat near the door, and was watching the gay dancers when she felt her arm softly touched, and, turning, saw her maid standing by her with an anxious, frightened look upon her face.

“Come, please, come quick,” she said in a whisper, and, following her out, Miss McDonald asked what was the matter.

“This—­you must go away at once.  I’ll pack your things.  I promised not to tell, but I must.  I can’t see your pretty face all spoiled and ugly.”

“What do you mean?” the lady asked, and after a little she made out from the girl’s statement that in strolling on the back piazza she had stumbled upon her first cousin, of whose whereabouts she had known nothing for a long time.

The girl, Mary, had, it seemed, come to Saratoga a week or ten days before, with her master’s family, consisting of his wife and two children.  As the hotel was crowded they were assigned rooms for the night in a distant part of the house, with a promise of something much better on the morrow.  In the morning, however, the lady, who had not been well for some days, was too sick to leave her bed, and the doctor who was called in to see her, pronounced the disease—­here Sarah stopped and gasped for breath and looked behind her and all ways, and finally whispered a word which made even Miss McDonald start a little and wince with fear.