“My mother says as how she’d like you to come to tea, over at Richmond,” said Chandler awkwardly, “I just come in to see whether we could fix it up, Miss Daisy.” And Daisy looked imploringly at her stepmother. “D’you mean now—this minute?” asked Mrs. Bunting tartly. “No, o’ course not”—Bunting broke in hastily. “How you do go on, Ellen!” “What day did your mother mention would be convenient to her?” asked Mrs. Bunting, looking at the young man satirically. Chandler hesitated. His mother had not mentioned any special day—in fact, his mother had shown a surprising lack of anxiety to see Daisy at all. But he had talked her round. “How about Saturday?” suggested Bunting. “That’s Daisy’s birthday. ’Twould be a birthday treat for her to go to Richmond, and she’s going back to Old Aunt on Monday.” “I can’t go Saturday,” said Chandler disconsolately. “I’m on duty Saturday.” “Well, then, let it be Sunday,” said Bunting firmly. And his wife looked at him surprised; he seldom asserted himself so much in her presence. “What do you say, Miss Daisy?” said Chandler. “Sunday would be very nice,” said Daisy demurely. And then, as the young man took up his hat, and as her stepmother did not stir, Daisy ventured to go out into the hall with him for a minute. Chandler shut the door behind them, and so was spared the hearing of Mrs. Bunting’s whispered remark: “When I was a young woman folk didn’t gallivant about on Sunday; those who was courting used to go to church together, decent-like—” CHAPTER XXV. Daisy’s eighteenth birthday dawned uneventfully. Her father gave her what he had always promised she should have on her eighteenth birthday—a watch. It was a pretty little silver watch, which Bunting had bought secondhand on the last day he had been happy—it seemed a long, long time ago now. Mrs. Bunting thought a silver watch a very extravagant present but she was far too wretched, far too absorbed in her own thoughts, to trouble much about it. Besides, in such matters she had generally had the good sense not to interfere between her husband and his child. In the middle of the birthday morning Bunting went out to buy himself some more tobacco. He had never smoked so much as in the last four days, excepting, perhaps, the week that had followed on his leaving service. Smoking a pipe had then held all the exquisite pleasure which we are told attaches itself to the eating of forbidden fruit. His tobacco had now become his only relaxation; it acted on his nerves as an opiate, soothing his fears and helping him to think. But he had been overdoing it, and it was that which now made him feel so “jumpy,” so he assured himself, when he found himself starting at any casual sound outside, or even when his wife spoke to him suddenly.