When the maiden, pure as snow, turned in grief and anger from the proffer of the heart without the hand, he deceived her by a mock marriage, swearing her to keep the secret. In the distant village, where they spent their blissful honeymoon, she somehow discovered through a letter he had dropped that he was betrothed to another, and the wedding day set. Undreaming of treachery, yet grieved for her hapless rival’s sorrow, _Daisy_ reproached her young husband for his flirtations, and insisted on his writing at once to the young girl to break off as gently as possible the engagement he could never now fulfill. Carelessly assenting, _Chester_ wrote the letter under _Daisy’s_ eyes, sealed and addressed it, and pretended to have her post it to make sure. But he had cunningly slipped quite another sort of letter into the envelope, and destroyed the one she had seen him write. By and by came the time when he must leave her alone and return to his home, lest his rich father disinherit him on finding out the truth of his marriage to the village beauty. He never returned. For a while came letters filled with love and devotion, and always inclosing money for the little wife. Weary months slipped away, and brought the winter snows. The deserted bride fell ill, and besought her husband to return to her side. Blank silence fell. No more letters, no more money. In the simple cottage where she boarded, the people began to hint at desertion. The villainous son showed her loverlike attentions. When _Daisy_ repulsed him in anger he showed her a letter from her husband that broke her heart. _Chester_ had written to the villain that the girl was not his wife. He had deceived her by a mock marriage. Now he was weary of her, and would see her no more. In fact, he was about to go abroad for years, and if he, the villain, would marry the girl, he would pay him handsomely to keep the whole thing quiet. For the sake of her beauty and the bribe he was offered, this poor apology for manhood was ready to make _Daisy_ an honest wife, but when she refused him with biting scorn he made his weak mother thrust her into the street, homeless and penniless in the winter’s snow. _Daisy_ pawned her simple jewels and journeyed back to her deserted home and widowed mother, praying only to die under the roof that had sheltered her childhood and girlhood. Then she heard that there was to be a grand wedding up at the hall that night. Her false lover was about to wed the beautiful heiress, his social equal, his chosen mate. Poor little _Daisy_ had been plucked as carelessly as a wayside flower, and thrown aside to die. The poor old mother, half crazed by her daughter’s shame and despair, cried bitterly: