"Don't wait breakfast for me, please," she says, when she has been called for the third or fourth time, and if she can get us to sit down without her she seems to think it all right, and that she can be as long as she likes.
I wonder that it never occurs to her that to keep the breakfast table round, as we must, makes the girls cross and upsets the kitchen generally. I hinted as much to her once when the table stood till ten o'clock, and she only opened her great blue eyes wonderingly, and said mamma had spoiled her she guessed, for it did not use to matter at home when she was ready, but she would try and do better. She bade Zillah call her at five the next morning, and Zillah called her, and then she was a half hour late. Guy doesn't like that, and he looked daggers on the night of the reception, when the guests began to arrive before she was dressed! And she commenced her toilet too, at three o'clock! But she was wondrously beautiful in her bridal robes, and took all hearts by storm. She is perfectly at home in society, and knows just what to do and say so long as the conversation keeps in the fashionable round of chit-chat, but when it drifts into deeper channels she is silent at once, or only answers in monosyllables. I believe she is a good French scholar, and she plays and sings tolerably well, and reads the novels as they come out, but of books and literature, in general, she is wholly ignorant, and if Guy thought to find in her any sympathy with his favorite studies and authors he is terribly mistaken.
And yet, as I write all this, my conscience gives me sundry pricks as if I were wronging her, for in spite of her faults I like her ever so much, and like to watch her flitting through the house and grounds like the little fairy she is, and I hope the marriage may turn out well, and that she will improve with age, and make Guy very happy.
[CHAPTER II.—EXTRACTS FROM GUY'S JOURNAL.]
September 20th, 18—.
Three months married. Three months with Daisy all to myself, and yet not exactly to myself either, for of her own accord she does not often come where I am, unless it is just as I have shut myself up in my room, thinking to have a quiet hour with my books. Then she generally appears, and wants me to ride with her, or play croquet or see which dress is most becoming, and I always submit and obey her as if I were the child instead of herself.
She is young, and I almost wonder her parents allowed her to marry. Fan hints that they were mercenary, but if they were they concealed the fact wonderfully well, and made me think it a great sacrifice on their part to give me Daisy. And so it was; such a lovely little darling, and so beautiful. What a sensation she created at Saratoga! and still I was glad to get away, for I did not fancy some things which were done there. I did not like so many young men around her, nor her dancing those abominable round dances which she seemed to enjoy so much. "Square dances were poky," she said, even after I tried them with her for the sake of keeping her out of that vile John Britton's arms. I have an impression that I made a spectacle of myself, hopping about like a magpie, but Daisy said, "I did beautifully," though she cried because I put my foot on her lace flounce and tore it, and I noticed that after that she always had some good reason why I should not dance again. "It was too hard work for me; I was too big and clumsy," she said, "and would tire easily. Cousin Tom was big and he never danced."
By the way, I have some little curiosity with regard to that Cousin Tom who wanted Daisy so badly, and who, because she refused him, went off to South America. I trust he will stay there. Not that I am or could be jealous of Daisy, but it is better for cousins like Tom to keep away.
Daisy is very happy here, though she is not quite as enthusiastic over the place as I supposed she would be, knowing how she lived at home. The McDonalds are intensely respectable, so she says; but her father's practice cannot bring him over two thousand a year, and the small brown house they live in, with only a grass-plot in the rear and at the side, is not to be compared with Elmwood, which is a fine old place, every one admits. It has come out gradually that she thought the house was brick and had a tower and billiard-room, and that we kept a great many servants, and had a fish-pond on the premises, and velvet carpets on every floor. I would not let Fan know this for the world, as I want her to like Daisy thoroughly.
And she does like her, though this little pink and white pet of mine is a new revelation to her, and puzzles her amazingly. She would have been glad if I had married Julia Hamilton, of Boston; but those Boston girls are too strong-minded and positive to suit me. Julia is nice, it is true, and pretty, and highly educated, and Fan says she has brains and would make a splendid wife. As Fan had never seen Daisy she did not, of course, mean to hint that she had not brains, but I suspect even now she would be better pleased if Julia were here, but I should not. Julia is self-reliant; Daisy is not. Julia has opinions of her own and asserts them, too; Daisy does not. Julia can sew and run a machine; Daisy cannot. Julia gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night; Daisy does neither. Nobody ever waits for Julia; everybody waits for Daisy. Julia reads scientific works and dotes on metaphysics; Daisy does not know the meaning of the word. In short, Julia is a strong, high-toned, energetic, independent woman, while Daisy is—a little innocent, confiding girl, whom I would rather have without brains than all the Boston women like Julia with brains!