ved her grief genuine,
mingled as it must be with remorse for the past, and laying his hand on
her bowed head, he said to her, kindly:

"I am very sorry for you, and if I can do anything for you, do not
hesitate to command me."

Alas for poor weak human nature when perverted from its better side! The
sound of Teddy's voice, so different from what it had been before during
the voyage, awoke a throb in Daisy's heart, which she would not like to
have confessed to those around her. She was free now, and who knew that
she might not one day be mistress of that handsome place in Ireland,
Lord Hardy's home, if she only played her cards well. Surely that
low-born Yankee girl, Augusta Browne, could never be her rival, even if
she had money. Such was the thought which flashed like lightning through
Daisy's mind as she felt the touch of Lord Hardy's hand and heard his
sympathetic voice.

Her first impulse, when she read the telegram, had been that she must go
back to Bessie in the first ship which sailed, but now her decision was
reversed. Archie was dead and buried. She could do no good to him, and
she might as well stay a little while, especially as she knew Lord Hardy
had accepted Mrs. Browne's invitation to spend a few days with them at
the Ridge House. It would never do to abandon the field to Augusta, she
reflected, but her tears flowed just as fast, and, to do her justice,
there was a sense of bitter pain in her heart, as she sat with her head
bowed down, while the Brownes and Lord Hardy stood around trying to
comfort her. Mrs. Browne offered her sal-volatile and called her "my
poor dear;" Augusta put her arms around her neck; Allen fanned her
gently, and Lord Hardy asked what he could do, while Mr. Browne said it
was "plaguey hard on her, but somebody must go and see to them
confounded custom-house chaps, or they would have every dud out of the
ten trunks, and there'd be a pretty how-d'ye-do."

Thus reminded of what had been a terror to her all the voyage, Mrs.
Browne suggested that Daisy should leave the ship and sit on the wharf
with "Gusty to attend to her, while she helped her husband pull
through."

It was in vain that Mr. Browne protested against any help, telling his
better-half to mind her business, and saying that she'd only upset
everything with her fussiness and red face. But Mrs. Browne would not
listen. She was not going to let him lie. She had given him numerous
lectures on that point during the voyage,