“How happy she is!” thought Daisy, wistfully. “She has home, friends, and love, while I have nothing that makes life worth the living.”
Like a shadow, she flitted on through the dim, shadowy hall, toward her own little room. She saw Gertie’s door was ajar as she passed it, and the sound of her own name caused her to pause voluntarily.
It was very natural for Daisy to pause. How many are there who would have passed on quietly, with no desire to know what was being said of themselves, when they heard their own names mentioned in such a sneering manner? Daisy certainly meant no harm by it; she paused, thoughtfully and curiously, as any one would have done.
“I am sure I don’t like it,” Gertie was saying, spitefully. “It is an actual shame allowing Daisy Brooks to remain here. Uncle Jet was a mean old thing to send her here, where there were three marriageable young ladies. I tell you he did it out of pure spite.”
“I believe it,” answered Bess, spiritedly. “Every one of 113 my beaus either hints for an introduction or asks for it outright.”
“What do you tell them?” questions Gertie, eagerly.
“Tell them! Why, I look exceedingly surprised, replying: ‘I do not know to whom you refer. We have no company at the house just now.’ ‘I mean that beautiful, golden-haired little fairy, with the rosy cheeks and large blue eyes. If not your guest, may I ask who she is?’ I am certainly compelled to answer so direct a thrust,” continued Bess, angrily; “and I ask in well-feigned wonder: ‘Surely you do not mean Daisy Brooks, my mother’s paid companion?’”
“What do they say to that?” asked Gertie, laughing heartily at her elder sister’s ingenuity, and tossing her curl papers until every curl threatened to tumble down. “That settles it, doesn’t it?”
“Mercy, no!” cried Bess, raising her eyebrows; “not a bit of it. The more I say against her––in a sweet way, of course––the more they are determined to form her acquaintance.”
“I don’t see what every one can see in that little pink-and-white baby-face of hers to rave over so!” cried Gertie, hotly. “I can’t imagine where in the world people see her. I have as much as told her she was not expected to come into the parlor or drawing-room when strangers were there, and what do you suppose she said?”