And before she slept she wrote to her bankers in London, bidding them
forward to Bessie's address another hundred pounds, and charge it to her
account.
The next morning Miss Betsey was sitting in her hop-vine-covered porch,
shelling peas for her early dinner, and thinking of Archie and the
painted Jezebel, as she designated Daisy, when a shadow fell upon the
floor, and looking up she saw the subject of her thoughts standing
before her, with her yellow hair arranged low in her neck, and a round
black hat set coquettishly upon her head. Miss Betsey did not manifest
the least surprise, but adjusting her spectacles from her forehead to
her eyes, looked up inquiringly at her visitor, who, seating herself
upon the threshold of the door, took off her hat, and in the silvery
tones she could assume so well, said:
"You must excuse me, dear auntie. I could not wait for you to call, I
wanted to see you so badly, and, as Allen Browne was going to the
post-office, I rode down with him, I am Daisy--Archie's wife, or widow,
for Archie is dead, you know.
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