"I mean," she replied, "that if you have no money, and want some, why don't you go to work and earn it like Giles, the tailor, or Jones, the baker? It would not hurt you one bit."
"That is rich!" Archie exclaimed, sitting upright for the first time and laughing immoderately. "The best thing I have heard. Ask Lady Jane, or Uncle John, or even Anthony, how they would like to have a McPherson turn baker, or tailor, or tinker."
"You know I did not mean you to be any of these," the girl answered, a little indignantly; "but you might do something. You can go to London and be a clerk in that big store, Marshall & Snellgrove's. That would not be hard, nor spoil your hands."
"I am afraid it would, little Daze," the boy replied. "You will have to try again. It would never do for a McPherson to be in trade. We were not born to it. How would gambling suit you? Piles of money are made that way."
"Gambling!" Daisy repeated, and could Miss Betsey McPherson have seen the scorn which flashed in the eyes of Daisy Allen, she would have forgiven the Daisy McPherson whom she saw years after upon the terrace at Aberystwyth flirting with Lord Hardy.
But the Daisy of the Marine Terrace was a very different person from the young girl who, with a hand upon each hip and her head on one side, gave Archie a piece of her mind in terms neither mild nor selected.
"Gambling! I'd never speak to you again if you stooped to such a thing as to play for money. You'd better a thousand times sell butcher's meat at the corner, or cry gooseberries in the street! Suppose you are a gentleman, a McPherson, without money, must you either gamble, or sit still and let some one else take care of you? It won't hurt you to work any more than any body else, and you'll have to do something. Every body says so. Suppose you do have Stoneleigh when your father dies; there are only a few acres besides the park, and they are all run down. What are you going to do?"
"Upon my word, I did not know you had so much vim. You are a regular little spit-fire," Archie said, regarding her intently; then after a pause, he added: "What am I going to do? I am sure I don't know, unless I marry you and let you take care of me! I believe you could do it."
The hands which had been pressed on Daisy's hips met suddenly together in a quick, nervous clasp, while there came over the girl's face a look of wonder and surprise, and evident perplexity. Although Daisy was much older than her years in some things, the idea of marrying Archibald McPherson, or any one else, had never entered her mind.