e might take care of him or the boy might starve for all of her.
This letter John and Lady Jane read together, but did not consider for a
moment. With a scornful toss of her head Lady Jane declared herself
ready to give of her own means toward the maintenance of the boy, rather
than to see a McPherson degraded to manual labor and thus disgrace her
son Neil, the apple of her eye.

And so it was settled between them that Archie was to be kept in
ignorance of his Aunt Betsey's offer, which the low taste he had
inherited from his mother might possibly prompt him to accept. Meanwhile
he was for the present to remain at Stoneleigh, where his living would
cost a mere pittance, and where he would pursue his studies as
heretofore, under the direction of a retired clergyman, who, for a
nominal sum, took boys to educate. This sum, with other absolute
necessaries, John undertook to pay, feeling when all the arrangements
were made that he had done his duty to his brother's child, who was
perfectly delighted to be left by himself at Stoneleigh, where he could
do as he pleased with Anthony and Dorothy, and his teacher, too, for
that matter, and where he was free to talk with and tease and at last
make love to Daisy Allen, for his Uncle John paid but little attention
to him beyond paying the sum he had pledged, and having him in his
family at London and in Derbyshire, for a few weeks each year when it
was most convenient.

Naturally he could not help falling in love with Daisy, who was the only
girl he ever saw except the high-bred, milk-and-water misses whom he
sometimes met in Lady Jane's drawing-room, and who, in point of beauty
and grace and piquancy, could in no degree compare with the playmate of
his childhood.

After the morning when Daisy kept the sun from him in the old yew-shaded
garden, and he jestingly proposed to marry her, that she might take care
of him, a change came over the girl, who began to develope the talent
for intrigue in which she afterward became so successful. And as a
preliminary step she made herself so necessary to Archie that his life
without her would hardly have been endurable, and of his own accord he
always shortened as much as possible, his visits to London, for he knew
how bright was the face and how warm the welcome awaiting him at
Stoneleigh.

And so it came about that when Daisy was sixteen and he was twenty, he
offered himself to the girl, who pretended no surprise or reserve, but
promptly