“Yes,” she replied, “if Miss Pluma does not need me.”
“Good-bye, Daisy,” he said. “I shall see you again.”
He held out his hand and her little fingers trembled and fluttered in his clasp. Daisy looked so happy yet so frightened, so charming yet so shy, Rex hardly knew how to define the feeling that stirred in his heart.
He watched the graceful, fairy figure as Daisy tripped away––instead of thinking he had done a very foolish thing that bright morning. Rex lighted a cigar and fell to dreaming of sweet little Daisy Brooks, and wondering how he should pass the time until he should see her again.
While Daisy almost flew up the broad gravel path to the house, the heavy burden she bore seemed light as a feather––no thought that she had been imprudent ever entered her mind.
There was no one to warn her of the peril which lay in the witching depths of the handsome stranger’s glances.
All her young life she had dreamed of the hero who would one day come to her, just such a dream as all youthful maidens experience––an idol they enshrine in their innermost heart, and worship in secret, never dreaming of a cold, dark time when the idol may lie shattered in ruins at their feet. How little knew gentle Daisy Brooks of the fatal love which would drag her down to her doom!