Daisy was strangely pitiful in her thoughts of Julia, who would in her turn have pitied her for her delusion, could she have known how sure she was that but for the tardiness of that letter Guy would have chosen his first love in preference to any other. And it was well that each believed herself first in the affection of the man to whom Daisy wanted so much to send something as a proof of her unalterable love. They were living still in the brown cottage; they were not able to buy Elmwood back. Oh, if she only dared to do it, how gladly her Christmas gift should be the handsome place which they had been so proud of. But that would hardly do; Guy might not like to be so much indebted to her; he was proud and sensitive in many points, and so she abandoned the plan for the present, thinking that by and by she would purchase and hold it as a gift to her namesake on her bridal day. That will be better, she said, as she put the last article in the box and saw it leave her door, directed to Guy Thornton’s care. ———— Great was the surprise at the Brown Cottage, when, on the very night before Christmas the box arrived and was deposited in the dining-room, where Guy and Julia, Miss Barker and Daisy, gathered eagerly around it, the later exclaiming: "I knows where it tum from, I do. My sake-name, Miss Mac-Dolly, send it, see did. I writ and ask her would see, an’ see hab." "What!" Guy said, as, man-like, he began deliberately to untie every knot in the string which his wife in her impatience would have cut at once. "What does the child mean? Do you know, Julia?" "I do. I’ll explain," Miss Barker said, and in as few words as possible she told what she had done, while Julia listened with a very grave face, and Guy was pale to his lips as he went on untying the string and opening the box. There was a letter lying on the top which he handed to Julia, who steadied her voice to read aloud: "New York, December 22, 18—. "Darling little _sake-name_ _Daisy_:—Your letter made Miss Mack-Dolly very happy, and she is so glad to send you the doll with a _shash_, and the other toys. Write to me again and tell me if they suit you. God bless you, sweet little one, is the prayer of "_Miss McDonald_." After that the grave look left Julia’s face, and Guy was not quite so pale, as he took out, one after another, the articles, which little Daisy hailed with rapturous shouts and exclamations of delight. "Oh, isn’t she dood, and don’t you love her, papa?" she said, while Guy replied: "Yes, it was certainly very kind in her, and generous. No other little girl in town will have such a box as this."