“You do not seem enough interested to even ask who they are,” said Eve, disappointedly. “I suppose you have never heard we have some of the handsomest gentlemen around here to be met with in the whole South––or in the North either, for that matter,” said Eve, enthusiastically. “Wait until you have seen some of them.”
How little she knew the girl’s heart and soul was bound up in Rex, whom she told herself she was never again to see.
“Do you see that large gray, stone house yonder, whose turrets 88 you can just see beyond those trees?” asked Eve, suddenly, a mischievous light dancing in her merry hazel eyes.
“Yes,” replied Daisy. “I have a fine view of it from my window upstairs. I have seen a little child swinging to and fro in a hammock beneath the trees. Poor little thing, she uses a crutch. Is she lame?”
“Yes,” replied Eve, “that’s little Birdie; she’s lame. I do not want to talk about her but about her brother. Oh, he is perfectly splendid!” declared Eve, enthusiastically, “and rich, too. Why, he owns I don’t know how many cotton plantations and orange groves, and he is––oh––so handsome! You must take care you do not fall in love with him. All the girls do. If you did not, you would be a great exception; you could scarcely help caring for him, he is so winning and so nice,” said Eve, blushing furiously.
How poor little Daisy’s heart longed for sympathy and consolation! Oh, if she only dared tell Eve the great hidden sorrow that seemed eating her heart away! She felt that she must unburden her heart to some one, or it must surely break.
“Eve,” she said, her little hands closing softly over the restless brown one drumming a tattoo on the window-sill, and her golden head drooping so close to Eve’s, her curls mingled with her dark locks, “I could never love any one in this world again. I loved once––it was the sweetest, yet the most bitter, experience of my life. The same voice that spoke tender words to me cruelly cast me from him. Yet I love him still with all my heart. Do not talk to me of love, or lovers, Eve, I can not bear it. The world will never hold but one face for me, and that is the face of him who is lost to me forever.”
“Oh, how delightfully romantic!” cried Eve. “I said to myself over and over again there was some mystery in your life. I have seen such strange shadows in your eyes, and your voice often had the sound of tears in it. I do wish I could help you in some way,” said Eve, thoughtfully. “I’d give the world to set the matter straight for you. What’s his name, and where does he live?”
“I can not tell you,” said Daisy, shaking her golden curls sadly.
“Oh, dear! then I do not see how I can help you,” cried Eve.