Mortimer breaks the silence.

"We are very poor, Daisy."

"Yes, but happy."

"Sometimes. To-night I am not; I am weary of this daily toiling. The world
is not a workshop to wear out souls in. Man has perverted its use. Life,
and thought, and brain, are but crucibles to smelt gold in. Nobleness is
made the slave of avarice, just as a pure stream is taught to turn a
mill-wheel and become foul and muddied. The rich are scornful, and the poor
sorrowful. O, Daisy, such things should not be! My heart beats when I think
how poorly you and your mother are living."

"O, how much we owe you, Mortimer! you are selling your life for us. From
morning till night, day after day, you have been our slave. Poor, dear
Mortimer, how can we thank you? We can only give you love and prayers. You
will not let me help you. Last night, when you found me embroidering a
collar, a bit of work which Mrs. Potiphar had kindly given me, you
pleasantly cut it in pieces with your pen-knife, and then pawned your gold
pencil to pay for ruining Mrs. Potiphar's muslin--too proud to have me
work!"

"Why will you pain me, darling? I was complaining for others, not myself. I
do not toil as thousands do. I am impulsive and irascible, and do not mean
all I say. I am ungrateful; my heart should be full of gratitude to-night,
for the cloud which has hung over me the last six months has shown its
silver lining."

"What do you mean?" cries Daisy.

"Do you know that you are an heiress?" asks Mortimer, gaily.

Daisy laughs at the idea, and mockingly says, "Yes."

"An heiress to a good name, Daisy! which is better than purple, and linen,
and fine gold."

Daisy looks mystified, but forbears to question him, for he complains of
sleep. The lovers part at the head of the stairs. Mortimer, on reaching his
room, draws a paper from his bosom; he weeps over it, reads it again and
again; then he holds it in the flame of a candle. When the ashes have
fallen at his feet, he exclaims:

"I have kept my promise, Harvey Snarle! Peace to your memory!"

From a writing-desk in a corner of the room he takes a pile of manuscript,
and weary as he is, adds several pages to it. The dream of his boyhood has
grown with him--that delightful dream of authorship! How this
will-o'-the-wisp of the brain entices one into mental fogs! How it coaxes
and pets one, cheats and ruins one! And so that appalling pile of
closely-written manuscript is Mortimer's romance? Wasted hours and wasted