It will be our summer home, but in the winter my place is here in New
York with my people, who would starve and freeze without me. Guy has
agreed to that and will be a great help to me. He need never work any
more unless he chooses to do so, for my agent, says I am a millionaire,
thanks to poor Tom, who gave me his gold mine and his interest in that
railroad. And for Guy's sake I am glad, and for his children, the
precious darlings; how much I love them already, and how kind I mean to
be to them both for Julia's sake and Guy's! Hush! That's his ring, and
there's his voice in the hall asking for Miss McDonald, and so for the
last time I write that name, and sign myself, MARGARET MCDONALD.
_Extracts from Miss Frances Thornton's Diary._ ELMWOOD, June 15, ----.
I have been looking over an old journal, finished and laid away long
ago, and accidentally I stumbled upon a date eleven years back. It was
Guy's wedding day then; it is his anniversary now, and as on that June
day of years ago I worked among my flowers, so I have been with them
this morning, and as then, people from the town came into our beautiful
grounds, so they came to-day and praised our lovely place and said there
was no place like it in all the country round. But Julia was not with
them. She will never come to us again. Julia is dead, and her grave is
off in Saratoga, for Guy dare not have her moved, but he has erected a
costly monument to her memory, and the mound above her is like some
bright flower bed all the summer long, for he hires a man to tend it,
and goes twice each season to see that it is kept as he wishes to have
it. Julia is in Heaven and Daisy is here again at Elmwood, which she
purchased with her own money and fitted up with every possible
convenience and luxury.
Guy is ten years younger than he used to be, and we are all so happy
with this little fairy, who has expanded into a noble woman, and whom I
love as I never loved a living being before, Guy excepted, of course. I
never dreamed when I turned her out into the rain that I should love her
as I do, or that she was capable of being what she is. I would not have
her changed in any one particular, and neither, I am sure, would Guy,
while the little ones fairly worship her, and must sometimes be
troublesome with their love and their caresses.