Daisy pawned her simple jewels and journeyed back to her deserted home and widowed mother, praying only to die under the roof that had sheltered her childhood and girlhood.
Then she heard that there was to be a grand wedding up at the hall that night. Her false lover was about to wed the beautiful heiress, his social equal, his chosen mate.
Poor little Daisy had been plucked as carelessly as a wayside flower, and thrown aside to die.
The poor old mother, half crazed by her daughter’s shame and despair, cried bitterly:
“You have only yourself to blame, girl! I brought you up to shun rich young men; I told you they had no use for poor girls but to wreck their lives. You would not believe what I told you, you laughed at my warnings, and fled with the villain that ruined you. Now you have returned to drag out a wretched existence under the ban of scorn, while he goes scot-free and weds another!”
The wretched Daisy knew that it was all true. She shut herself into her room, and brooded over her trouble till her brain went wild.
In the evening she came down to her mother, calm with the calmness of a great despair.
“I have thought it all over, dear mother,” she said gently. “I did wrong to come back to you in my trouble; because you warned me and I would not listen. So I have no right to stay here and cloud your life with my shame and sorrow. I am going away forever. Good-by, dear mother. Say that you forgive me before I die!”
“What do you mean, child? Where are you going? What is this wild talk of dying? Come back, Daisy; mother will forgive you,” cried the poor mother, but Daisy had fled through the door out into the cold moonlight, shining on a world that was white with snow.
“I must follow and bring her back. I scolded her too harshly,” the mother cried, snatching her bonnet and hastening after her child.