CHAPTER I.

SHE, Daisy, knelt upstairs in front of the window, looking down on the snowy street. A pretty picture she made, framed in the frosty window, her fresh young breath making fancy shapes of the frost-work.

A brown head, crowned with masses of hair of that peculiar shade of brown which makes you think when you look at it on a cloudy day, that the sun is certainly shining somewhere and rippling those waves of hair with gold.

It was not banged; it was not even frizzed. Daisy's mother belonged to that class, of which there are a few rare specimens still extant, who liked neither style, and Daisy herself belonged to that possibly still rarer class of girls, who liked above all things to dress to please her mother. There had been an attempt to make the brown hair lie in smooth and glossy bands, but Nature had been too much for the owner. The hair escaped, and waved and frizzed itself to that inimitable way which is so very pretty and becoming, and of which all the hair-pin efforts are such exasperating imitations.

Brown eyes under the hair, large, bright, sweet, sad or grave, according to the mood of the wearer. Eyes which changed with the changing expression, and seemed to do much of the speaking. For the rest, you may imagine her.

There was a clear complexion; there was a sweet mouth and rosy cheeks.

There are a great many such girls, and yet they lack the something which, shining in Daisy's face, made the looker want to turn and look again, and half smile, in sympathy with the charm lingering there.

What is it? Who shall describe it? I fancy it is one of the ways in which the soul looks out from its prison-house of clay. Yet who will undertake to describe a soul?

She was looking down and smiling at, and bowing to Phil on the street below, while he tarried in the frosty air to execute a series of bows, extravagant in their burlesque of profound respect; also he was at intervals tossing up delicate balls of the soft snow, which it amused him to see her dodge, though the glass protected her from their touch.

"Throw up the sash," he shouted, "and crown your hair with ermine!"

But she shook her head merrily, albeit there was a wistful look in her eye, and she would have liked nothing better than to have gone down, coated and mittened, and had a snow-frolic in the street.

Had it been some friendly back-yard, instead of one of the public thoroughfares, or had they been seven and ten, instead of seventeen and twenty, she would have gone in a minute.

And then she gave one of those flitting sighs to her happy past, which is all that a happy girl of seventeen ever troubles herself about her past.

She sighed again, though, and her face grew grave with a sweet, sad gravity, born of something deeper than the desire for a snow-frolic; and as she looked after the handsome young fellow, who had used up his brief space of time in fun, and was now striding rapidly toward the bank, to get there before the clock struck nine, she said aloud, and wistfully:

"If I could only coax him to go with me! It might be a beginning of something better. It would certainly be better than what he is doing now. Mr. Easton is so interesting; I am almost certain he would enjoy it if he could once form the habit of going."

Not all of this aloud. After the first slow, wistful sentence, she went over the rest in her own thoughts, as she had done often and often before, and advanced no farther toward a solution; for her face did not clear as she arose and went about arranging the ribbons and laces in her drawer.

There was need for anxious thought. At least, so it seemed to Daisy Morris, Phil's cousin, and so it seemed to Aunt Mattie, Phil's mother.

Aunt and niece had spent hours already in serious talk over the possibilities and dangers of this young man.

"He used to be such a good boy," would Aunt Mattie say, with a sigh, and then hasten to correct herself: "Not but that he is a good boy now, so devoted to his mother and sister, so careful of their comfort! There isn't a better boy in the city in all such ways; but you know what I mean. He used to go to church as regularly as I do, and to Sabbath-school. I have a box full of reward cards which he received in the school for perfect lessons when he was a little boy; and he used to go to prayer meeting, too, and seemed to like to go; his father would often remark on its being unusual in such a little fellow. But he fell in with those unfortunate companions, and little by little the change came. Why, he had stayed at home from church for five or six successive weeks before I realized it! There always seemed to be a good reason; and now he only goes occasionally of an evening, and as for Sabbath-school, he seems to be disgusted with the very thought of it!

"Every Sabbath, he goes out for a walk, or sometimes a ride, with a party of young men who are far from being of the sort that a mother would choose for her son's companions, and he goes less and less to church, even in the evenings.

"Since Mr. Easton has come here, I have tried very hard to induce Phil to go to Sabbath-school. I thought if he would but go once into that Bible class, he would be attracted; for Mr. Easton has such a winning way with young men, and Phil is so intellectual, that he could not fail to be pleased. We have done our best, Blanche and I, but he seems fully resolved upon having nothing to do with Sunday-school in any form. I am so disappointed! For I had really counted a great deal on Mr. Easton's influence, but of course he can't do anything so long as Phil avoids him. My dear, there is another thing on which I am counting now, and that is your influence over Phil.

"If you can induce him to go to Sunday-school once, to please you, I believe that a good deal would be accomplished. And you know boys will often do for a young and pretty cousin what they will not even for a mother."

This is only a general view of the numerous talks which had been held on the same subject since Daisy Morris had come from her distant home to visit Aunt Hattie Hurst.

Many particulars had been added from time to time, and Daisy's quick eyes had seen some things of which she did not speak to either mother or sister. She believed that her handsome young cousin was in more danger than his own family realized. She know that the cigarettes which he smoked grew daily more numerous, and she had once or twice detected the odor of wine about him, and had been frightened over a certain gay recklessness which was unlike his usual courtesy. She believed that, while the restraints of a business life and the responsibility of standing somewhat, at least, in his dead father's place, held him in check during the week, the freedom of Sunday and the influence of his chosen friends were dragging him downward faster than his mother knew.

She had tried hard to use her influence in the right direction; but while she certainly had influence with him, it was not strong enough to draw him to church or to the Sabbath-school.

Since Daisy had made acquaintance with the new pastor, Mr. Easton, and joined his Bible Class, she had begun to share her aunt's almost superstitious belief that if Phil could only be gotten under that man's influence, great things would be accomplished.

But it was just that man's influence which he seemed determined to avoid. Only the Sabbath before had Daisy spent the entire morning coaxing and arguing, being gayly answered by her quick-witted cousin; she alternately hopeful and fearful; but so earnest had been her effort and her prayer, that hope had really predominated until she saw him drive away from the door with one of his friends, just as she was tying her ribbons in a flutter of haste to catch him and make one last effort. After that she sat down in a little heap before her window and cried, and told herself that it was of no use, she had done all she could.

No wonder that on this Saturday morning she sighed when the young man was gone. Last evening the odor of wine had been distinct about him, and the wildness which his mother called good spirits, Daisy believed meant danger in a more terrible form than the mother had even thought of as yet.

A succession of low, rapid, impatient knocks sounded at her door, and almost before she could answer, her Cousin Blanche flitted in.

A marked contrast to Daisy was this Cousin Blanche. Not that her hair was not brown, and her cheeks rosy, and her whole face full of sparkle; pretty she was, decidedly, if she had kept her hair out of her eyes, which, when fully dressed, she never did. And there was a certain pleasure in looking at her. She took life in all its forms, even its forms of care such as touched her, with a sort of joyish abandon.

Yet I think if you understood girls, you would have looked at her again, and sighed. There was such a chance to fade; you felt that she would fade, perhaps, with the first storm. You could not find what there was in Daisy's face that looked as though it might glow even amidst the storm, and certainly shine serene and sweet after the fierceness of storm was past.

She was in full flutter of excitement this morning, and caught at Daisy and whirled her about the room until the child was breathless, and her hair blown in waves into her wondering eyes, before there was an explanation of her mood.

"Oh, Daisy, Daisy, I have such good, splendid news for you! What do you think Phil says?

"We've been talking with him, mamma and I, and he promised; he actually promised! Daisy, do you hear?

"And when Philip Hurst promises anything, it is as good as done."

"What did he say?" This from Daisy, her cheeks like two blush roses, and the shadow gone.

"Why, he said he would go to Sabbath-school with you to-morrow, and go into Mr. Easton's class, and stay through the entire session, if we would get you to do something for him."