Daisy could only look her surprise. She could not understand such a transformation. But she loved her father dearly, and seeing that he was happy made her happy, too; though she had had her own sorrows of late.
"Tell me about it, father," she said, putting an arm around his neck.
"You couldn't understand, no matter how much I tried to make it clear," he answered, excitedly. "There was a combination that meant ruin or success, depending on the cast of a die, as one might say. Wool has been in a bad way. Congress had the tariff bill before it. If higher protection was put on, the stocks in the American market would rise. If the tariff rate was lowered they would fall. I took the right side. I bought an immense quantity of options. The bill passed to-day and the President signed it. Wool went up, and I am richer by two hundred and fifty thousand dollars than I was yesterday!"
For answer the girl kissed him affectionately, and for a few moments neither of them spoke.
"I don't wonder you say I can't understand business," said Daisy, presently. "It would puzzle most feminine brains, I think, to know how a man could purchase quantities of wool when he had nothing to buy with."
The father drew himself suddenly away from her, and gazed in a sort of alarm into her wide-opened eyes.
"That is a secret," he said, hoarsely. "It is one of the things business men do not talk about. When stocks are rising it is easy to buy a great deal, if one only has something to give him a start."
"And you had something?" asked Daisy, trying to utter the words that she thought would please him best.
"Yes, yes!" he answered, hurriedly. "I—had—something! And to-morrow I shall free myself of Boggs, and of—of all my troubles. I shall pay the mortgage on the house, and we can have anything we want. Ah! What a relief it is! What a relief!"