But the Daisy of the Marine Terrace was a very different person from the young girl who, with a hand upon each hip and her head on one side, gave Archie a piece of her mind in terms neither mild nor selected.
"Gambling! I'd never speak to you again if you stooped to such a thing as to play for money. You'd better a thousand times sell butcher's meat at the corner, or cry gooseberries in the street! Suppose you are a gentleman, a McPherson, without money, must you either gamble, or sit still and let some one else take care of you? It won't hurt you to work any more than any body else, and you'll have to do something. Every body says so. Suppose you do have Stoneleigh when your father dies; there are only a few acres besides the park, and they are all run down. What are you going to do?"
"Upon my word, I did not know you had so much vim. You are a regular little spit-fire," Archie said, regarding her intently; then after a pause, he added: "What am I going to do? I am sure I don't know, unless I marry you and let you take care of me! I believe you could do it."
The hands which had been pressed on Daisy's hips met suddenly together in a quick, nervous clasp, while there came over the girl's face a look of wonder and surprise, and evident perplexity. Although Daisy was much older than her years in some things, the idea of marrying Archibald McPherson, or any one else, had never entered her mind.
Now, however, she was conscious of a new feeling, which she could not define, and after regarding him fixedly for a moment, without any apparent consciousness, she answered in a very matter of fact way:
"I believe I could take care of you—somehow!"
"I know you could; so, suppose we call it a bargain," Archie said, but before Daisy could reply Lady Jane's maid appeared coming down the broad walk.
Stopping in front of the girl and boy, and merely noticing the former by a supercilious stare, she said to the latter interrogatively:
"Mr. Archibald McPherson?"
"Present!" he answered, with a comical look at Daisy, on whom it was lost, for she was admiring the smart cap and pink ribbons of the maid, who said: