And yet I sometimes wish she did care for books, and was more interested in what interests me. I have tried reading aloud to her an hour every evening, but she generally goes to sleep or steals up behind me to look over my shoulder and see how near I am to the end of the chapter, and when I reach it she says: "Excuse me, but I have just thought of something I must tell Zillah about the dress I want to wear to-morrow. I'll be back in a moment;" and off she goes and our reading is ended for that time, for I notice she never returns. The dress is of more importance than the book, and I find her at ten or eleven trying to decide whether black or white or blue is most becoming to her. Poor Daisy! I fear she had no proper training at home. Indeed, she told me the other day that from her earliest recollection she had been taught that the main object of her life was to marry young and to marry money. Of course she did not mean anything, but I would rather she had not said it, even though I know she refused a millionaire for me who can hardly be called rich as riches are rated these days. If Dick Trevylian should fail to meet his payment I should be very poor, and then what would become of Daisy, to whom the luxuries which money buys are so necessary?
[Here followed several other entries in the journal, consisting mostly of rhapsodies on Daisy, and then came the following:]
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December 15th, 18—.
Dick has failed to meet his payments, and that too after having borrowed of me twenty thousand more! Is he a villain, and did he know all the time that I was ruining myself? I cannot think so when I remember the look on his face as he told me about it and swore to me solemnly that up to the very last he fully expected relief from England, where he thought he had a fortune.
"If I live I will pay you sometime," he said; but that does not help me now. I am a ruined man. Elmwood must be sold, and I must work like a dog to earn my daily bread. For myself I would not mind it much, and Fan, who, woman-like, saw it in the distance and warned me of it, behaves nobly; but it falls hard on Daisy.
Poor Daisy! She never said a word when I told her the exact truth, but she went to bed and cried for one whole day. I am so glad I settled ten thousand dollars on her when we were married. No one can touch that, and I told her so; but she did not say a word or seem to know what I meant. Talking of anything serious, or expressing her opinion, was never in her line, and she has not of her own accord spoken with me on the subject, and when I try to talk with her about our future she shudders and cries, and says, "Please don't! I can't bear it! I want to go home to mother!"
And so it is settled that while we are arranging matters she is to visit her mother and perhaps not return till spring, when I hope to be in a better condition financially than I am at present.
One thing Daisy said, which hurt me cruelly, and that was: "If I must be a poor man's wife I might as well have married Cousin Tom, who wanted me so badly!" To do her justice, however, she added immediately: "But I like you the best."
I am glad she said that. It will be something to remember when she is gone, or rather when I return without her, as I am going to Indianapolis with her, and then back to the dreary business of seeing what I have left and what I can do. I have an offer for the house, and shall sell it at once; but where my home will be next, I do not know, neither would I care so much if it were not for Daisy,—poor little Daisy!—who thought she had married a rich man. The only tears I have shed over my lost fortune were for her. Oh, Daisy, Daisy!