Lady Frances, as the three young men entered, was sitting in the big upholstered chair in the centre of the farmhouse living-room. Her eyes were shining, and her whole figure radiated an extraordinary animation. In her lap lay something in shawls—something that waved tiny red antennæ in a futile way, and emitted a series of unclassifiable sounds.
"He sounds like a crow," Milt Hayes said, sotto voce, to Jim Burns, "don't he?"
"You wouldn't know a crow from a cowbird, Hayes," Jim Burns muttered; "talk sense, or keep still."
The three approached on tiptoe. Lady Frances looked up and smiled.
"You may walk briskly, young men," she said, "the child is quite wide awake, and not at all nervous, I think."
The three came on abreast, a little sheepishly; but when they were about five feet away, Jim Burns, with an air of proprietorship, elbowed the other two aside and stepped to the front. Arriving at Lady Frances' chair, he leaned over and took a lengthy and critical survey of the infant.
"Well, ma'am," he said, "I been like a brother to Daise, and I've give Bill a talkin'-to, more than the once: so I can speak my mind plain-out about this baby. It's pretty fair-looking, and I guess by the way it slings its hands around and hollers, it'll live—but I don't think it does entire justice to Daise's looks and Bill's style. I certainly don't. Come on, boys: yous can take a peek, but don't touch it with your big clumsy hands. You first, Dex, and then Milt. Don't breathe in his face, Coleman, you galoot!"
Here obviously ends the book of Daisy the Girl, but not the story of Daisy. For as Daisy—or, more briefly, "Daise"—she still lives in the Toddburn district of Plowland. If you are ever that way along, you may call—any hour of any day, for there are no receiving days in Plowland. In asking your direction of those along the trail, do not enquire for the "estate of Sir William Ware". Nobody would know whom you meant. Just say, "Where does Bill Ware live?"
For the ancient title has fallen into disuse, and the big house in the city has been sold, and Lady Frances does not wince when little Billie Ware, jumping up and down ecstatically at the window, shouts across to her, "Oh, Gamma, see zem horses wun!"
—THE END—