It was Miss Cardigan's soft Scotch accent, and it was besides a question of the tenderest sympathy. I looked at her, saw the kind and strong grey eyes which were fixed on me wistfully; and hiding my face in her bosom I sobbed aloud.

I don't know how I came to be there, in her arms, nor how I did anything so unlike my habit; but there I was, and it was done, and Miss Cardigan and I were in each other's confidence. It was only for one moment that my tears came; then I recovered myself.

"What sort of discourse did the flowers hold to you, little one?" said Miss Cardigan's kind voice; while her stout person hid all view of me that could have been had through the glass door.

"Papa is away," I said, forcing myself to speak,—"and mamma:—and we used to have these flowers—"

"Yes, yes; I know. I know very well," said my friend. "The flowers didn't know but you were there yet. They hadn't discretion. Mrs. Sandford wants to go, dear. Will you come again and see them? They will say something else next time."

"Oh, may I?" I said.

"Just whenever you like, and as often as you like. So I'll expect you."

I went home, very glad at having escaped notice from my schoolmates, and firmly bent on accepting Miss Cardigan's invitation at the first chance I had. I asked about her of Mrs. Sandford in the first place; and learned that she was "a very good sort of person; a little queer, but very kind; a person that did a great deal of good and had plenty of money. Not in society, of course," Mrs. Sandford added; "but I dare say she don't miss that; and she is just as useful as if she were."

"Not in society." That meant, I supposed, that Miss Cardigan would not be asked to companies where Mrs. Randolph would be found, or Mrs. Sandford; that such people would not "know" her, in fact. That would certainly be a loss to Miss Cardigan; but I wondered how much? "The world knoweth us not,"—the lot of all Christ's people,—could it involve anything in itself very bad? My old Juanita, for example, who held herself the heir to a princely inheritance, was it any harm to her that earthly palaces knew her only as a servant? But then, what did not matter to Juanita or Miss Cardigan might matter to somebody who had been used to different things. I knew how it had been with myself for a time past. I was puzzled. I determined to wait and see, if I could, how much it mattered to Miss Cardigan.



CHAPTER XII.

FRENCH DRESSES.

My new friend had given me free permission to come and see her whenever I found myself able. Saturday afternoon we always had to ourselves in the school; and the next Saturday found me at Miss Cardigan's door again as soon as my friends and room-mates were well out of my way. Miss Cardigan was not at home, the servant said, but she would be in presently. I was just as well pleased. I took off my cap, and carrying it in my hand I went back through the rooms to the greenhouse. All still and fresh and sweet, it seemed more delightful than ever, because I knew there was nobody near. Some new flowers were out. An azalea was in splendid beauty, and a white French rose, very large and fair, was just blossoming, and with the red roses and the hyacinths and the violets and the daphne and the geraniums, made a wonderful sweet place of the little greenhouse. I lost myself in delight again; but this time the delight did not issue in homesickness. The flowers had another message for me to-day. I did not heed it at first, busy with examining and drinking in the fragrance and the loveliness about me; but even as I looked and drank, the flowers began to whisper to me. With their wealth of perfume, with all their various, glorious beauty, one and another leaned towards me or bent over me with the question—"Daisy, are you afraid?—Daisy, are you afraid?—The good God who has made us so rich, do you think he will leave you poor? He loves you, Daisy. You needn't be a bit afraid but that HE is enough, even if the world does not know you. He is rich enough for you as well as for us."

I heard no voice, but surely I heard that whisper, plain enough. The roses seemed to kiss me with it. The sweet azalea repeated it. The hyacinths stood witnesses of it. The gay tulips and amaryllis held up a banner before me on which it was blazoned.

I was so ashamed, and sorry, and glad, all at once, that I fell down on my knees there, on the stone matted floor, and gave up the world from my heart and for ever, and stretched out my hands for the wealth that does not perish and the blessing that has no sorrow with it.

I was afraid to stay long on my knees; but I could hardly get my eyes dry again, I was so glad and so sorry. I remember I was wiping a tear or two away when Miss Cardigan came in. She greeted me kindly.

"There's a new rose out, did ye see it?" she said; "and this blue hyacinth has opened its flowers. Isn't that bonny?"

"What is bonny, ma'am?" I asked.

Miss Cardigan laughed, the heartiest, sonsiest low laugh.

"There's a many things the Lord has made bonny," she said. "I thank Him for it. Look at these violets—they're bonny; and this sweet red rose." She broke it off the tree and gave it to me. "It's bad that it shames your cheeks so. What's the matter wi' 'em, my bairn?"

Miss Cardigan's soft finger touched my cheek as she spoke; and the voice and tone of the question were so gently, tenderly kind that it was pleasant to answer. I said I had not been very strong.

"Nor just weel in your mind. No, no. Well, what did the flowers say to you to-day, my dear? Eh? They told you something?"

"Oh yes!" I said.

"Did they tell you that 'the Lord is good; a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in Him?'"

"Oh yes," I said, looking up at her in surprise. "How did you know?"

For all answer, Miss Cardigan folded her two arms tight about me and kissed me with earnest good will.

"But they told me something else," I said, struggling to command myself;—"they told me that I had not 'trusted in Him.'"

"Ah, my bairn!" she said. "But the Lord is good."

There was so much both of understanding and sympathy in her tones, that I had a great deal of trouble to control myself. I felt unspeakably happy too, that I had found a friend that could understand. I was silent, and Miss Cardigan looked at me.

"Is it all right, noo?" she asked.

"Except me,—" I said with my eyes swimming.

"Ah, well!" she said. "You've seen the sky all black and covered with the thick clouds—that's like our sins: but, 'I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins.' You know how it is when the wind comes and clears the clouds all off, and you can look up through the blue, till it seems as if your eye would win into heaven itself. Keep the sky clear, my darling, so that you can always see up straight to God, with never the fleck of a cloud between. But do you ken what will clear the clouds away?"

And I looked up now with a smile and answered, "'The precious blood of Christ'"—for the two texts had been close together in one of the pages of my little book not long before.

Miss Cardigan clapped her hands together softly and laughed. "Ye've got it!" she said. "Ye have gotten the pearl of great price. And where did ye find it, my dear?"

"I had a friend, that taught me in a Sunday-school, four years ago,—" I said.

"Ah, there weren't so many Sunday-schools in my day," said Miss Cardigan. "And ye have found, maybe, that this other sort of a school, that ye have gotten to now, isn't helpful altogether? Is it a rough road, my bairn?"

"It is my own fault," I said, looking at her gratefully. The tender voice went right into my heart.

"Well, noo, ye'll just stop and have tea with me here; and whenever the way is rough, ye'll come over to my flowers and rest yourself. And rest me too; it does me a world o' good to see a young face. So take off your coat, my dear, and let us sit down and be comfortable."

I was afraid at first that I could not; I had no liberty to be absent at tea-time. But Miss Cardigan assured me I should be home in good season; the school tea was at seven, and her own was always served at six. So very gladly, with an inexpressible sense of freedom and peace, I took off my coat and gloves, and followed my kind friend back to the parlour where her fire was burning. For although it was late in April, the day was cool and raw; and the fire one saw nowhere else was delightful in Miss Cardigan's parlour.

Every minute of that afternoon was as bright as the fire glow. I sat in the midst of that, on an ottoman, and Miss Cardigan, busy between her two tables, made me very much interested in her story of some distressed families for whom she was working. She asked me very little about my own affairs; nothing that the most delicate good breeding did not warrant; but she found out that my father and mother were at a great distance from me, and I almost alone, and she gave me the freedom of her house. I was to come there whenever I could and liked; whenever I wanted to "rest my feet," as she said; especially I might spend as much of every Sunday with her as I could get leave for. And she made this first afternoon so pleasant to me with her gentle beguiling talk, that the permission to come often was like the entrance into a whole world of comfort. She had plenty to talk about; plenty to tell, of the poor people to whom she and others were ministering; of plans and methods to do them good; all which somehow she made exceedingly interesting. There was just a little accent to her words, which made them, in their peculiarity, all the more sweet to me; but she spoke good English; the "noo" which slipped out now and then, with one or two other like words, came only, I found, at times when the fountain of feeling was more full than ordinary, and so flowed over into the disused old channel. And her face was so fresh, rosy, round and sweet, withal strong and sound, that it was a perpetual pleasure to me.

As she told her stories of New York needy and suffering, I mentally added my poor people at Magnolia, and began to wonder with myself, was all the world so? Were these two spots but samples of the whole? I got into a brown study, and was waked out of it by Miss Cardigan's "What is it, my dear?"

"Ma'am?" I said.

"Ye are studying some deep question," she said, smiling. "Maybe it's too big for you."

"So it is," said I, sighing. "Is it so everywhere, Miss Cardigan?"

"So how, my bairn?"

"Is there so much trouble everywhere in the world?"

Her face clouded over.

"Jesus said, 'The poor ye have always with you, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good.'"

"But that is what I don't understand about," I said. "How much ought one to do, Miss Cardigan?"

There came a ray of infinite brightness over her features; I can hardly describe it; it was warm with love, and bright with pleasure, and I thought sparkled with a little amusement.

"Have you thought upon that?" she said.

"Yes," I said,—"very much."

"It is a great question!" she said, her face becoming grave again.

"I know," I said, "of course one ought to do all one can. But what I want to know is, how much one can. How much ought one to spend, for such things?"

"It's a great question," Miss Cardigan repeated, more gravely than before. "For when the King comes, to take account of His servants, He will want to know what we have done with every penny. Be sure, He will."

"Then how can one tell?" said I, hoping earnestly that now I was going to get some help in my troubles. "How can one know? It is very difficult."

"I'll no say it's not difficult," said Miss Cardigan, whose thoughts seemed to have gone into the recesses of her own mind. "Dear, its nigh our tea-time. Let us go in."

I followed her, much disappointed, and feeling that if she passed the subject by so, I could not bring it up again. We went through to the inner room; the same from which the glass door opened to the flowers. Here a small table was now spread. This room was cosy. I had hardly seen it before. Low bookcases lined it on every side; and above the bookcases hung maps; maps of the city and of various parts of the world where missionary stations were established. Along with the maps, a few engravings and fine photographs. I remember one of the Colosseum, which I used to study; and a very beautiful engraving of Jerusalem. But the one that fixed my eyes this first evening, perhaps because Miss Cardigan placed me in front of it, was a picture of another sort. It was a good photograph, and had beauty enough besides to hold my eyes. It showed a group of three or four. A boy and girl in front, handsome, careless, and well-to-do, passing along, with wandering eyes. Behind them and disconnected from them by her dress and expression, a tall woman in black robes with a baby on her breast. The hand of the woman was stretched out with a coin which she was about dropping into an iron-bound coffer which stood at the side of the picture. It was "the widow's mite;" and her face, wan, sad, sweet, yet loving and longing, told the story. The two coins were going into the box with all her heart.

"You know what it is?" said my hostess.

"I see, ma'am," I replied; "it is written under."

"That box is the Lord's treasury."

"Yes, ma'am," I said,—"I know."

"Do you remember how much that woman gave?"

"Two mites,"—I said.

"It was something more than that," said my hostess. "It was more than anybody else gave that day. Don't you recollect? It was all her living."

I looked at Miss Cardigan, and she looked at me. Then my eyes went back to the picture, and to the sad yet sweet and most loving face of the poor woman there.

"Ma'am," said I, "do you think people that are rich ought to give all they have?"

"I only know, my Lord was pleased with her," said Miss Cardigan softly; "and I always think I should like to have Him pleased with me too."

I was silent, looking at the picture and thinking.

"You know what made that poor widow give her two mites?" Miss Cardigan asked presently.

"I suppose she wanted to give them," I said.

"Ay," said my hostess, turning away,—"she loved the Lord's glory beyond her own comfort. Come, my love, and let us have some tea. She gave all she had, Miss Daisy, and the Lord liked it; do ye think you and me can do less?"

"But that is what I do not understand," I said, following Miss Cardigan to the little tea-table, and watching with great comfort the bright unruffled face which promised to be such a help to me.

"Now you'll sit down there," said my hostess, "where you can see my flowers while I can see you. It's poor work eating, if we cannot look at something or hear something at the same time; and maybe we'll do the two things. And ye'll have a bit of honey—here it is. And Lotty will bring us up a bit of hot toast—or is bread the better, my dear? Now ye're at home; and maybe you'll come over and drink tea with me whenever you can run away from over there. I'll have Lotty set a place for you. And then, when ye think of the empty place, you will know you had better come over and fill it. See—you could bring your study book and study here in this quiet little corner by the flowers."

I gave my very glad thanks. I knew that I could often do this.

"And now for the 'not understanding,'" said Miss Cardigan, when tea was half over. "How was it, my dear?"

"I have been puzzled," I said, "about giving—how much one ought to give, and how much one ought to spend—I mean for oneself."

"Well," said Miss Cardigan brightly, "we have fixed that. The poor woman gave all her living."

"But one must spend some money for oneself," I said. "One must have bonnets and cloaks and dresses."

"And houses, and books, and pictures," said Miss Cardigan, looking around her. "My lamb, let us go to the Bible again. That says, 'whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' So I suppose we must buy cloaks and bonnets on the same principle."

I turned this over in my mind. Had I done this, when I was choosing my chinchilla cap and grey cloak? A little ray of infinite brightness began to steal in upon their quiet colours and despised forms.

"If the rich are to give their all, as well as the poor, it doesn't say—mind you—that they are to give it all to the hungry, or all to the destitute; but only, they are to give it all to Christ. Then, He will tell them what to do with it; do ye understand, my dear?"

Miss Cardigan's eye was watching me, not more kindly than keen. A wise and clear grey eye it was.

"But isn't it difficult to know sometimes what to do?" I said. "I have been so puzzled to know about dresses. Mamma is away, and I had to decide."

"It's no very difficult," said Miss Cardigan,—"if once ye set your face in the right airth—as we speak. My dear, there's a great many sorts of dresses and bonnets and things; and I'd always buy just that bonnet and that gown, in which I thought I could do most work for my Master; and that wouldn't be the same sort of bonnet for you and for me," she said with a merry smile. "Now ye'll have another cup of tea, and ye'll tell me if my tea's good."

It was wonderfully good to me. I felt like a plant dried up for want of water, suddenly set in a spring shower. Refreshment was all around me, without and within. The faces of the flowers looked at me through the glass, and the sweet breath of them came from the open door. The room where I was sitting pleased me mightily, in its comfortable and pretty simplicity; and I had found a friend, even better than my old Maria and Darry at Magnolia. It was not very long before I told all about these to my new counsellor.

For the friendship between us ripened and grew. I often found a chance to fill my place at the dear little tea-table. Sundays I could always be there; and I went there straight from afternoon church, and rested among Miss Cardigan's books and in her sweet society and in the happy freedom and rest of her house, with an intensity of enjoyment which words can but feebly tell. So in time I came to tell her all my troubles and the perplexities which had filled me; I was willing to talk to Miss Cardigan about things that I would have breathed to no other ear upon earth. She was so removed from all the sphere of my past or present life, so utterly disconnected from all the persons and things with which I had had to do, it was like telling about them to a being of another planet. Yet she was not so removed but that her sympathies and her judgment could be living and full grown for my help; all ready to take hold of the facts and to enter into the circumstances, and to give me precious comfort and counsel. Miss Cardigan and I came to be very dear to each other.

All this took time. Nobody noticed at first, or seemed to notice, my visits to the "house with the flowers," as the girls called it. I believe, in my plain dress, I was not thought of importance enough to be watched. I went and came very comfortably; and the weeks that remained before the summer vacation slipped away in quiet order.

Just before the vacation, my aunt came home from Europe. With her came the end of my obscurity. She brought me, from my mother, a great supply of all sorts of pretty French dresses hats, gloves, and varieties—chosen by my mother—as pretty and elegant, and simple too, as they could be; but once putting them on, I could never be unnoticed by my schoolmates any more. I knew it, with a certain feeling that was not displeasure. Was it pride? Was it anything more than my pleasure in all pretty things? I thought it was something more. And I determined that I would not put on any of them till school was broken up. If it was pride, I was ashamed of it. But besides French dresses, my aunt brought me a better thing; a promise from my father.

"He said I was to tell you, Daisy my dear,—and I hope you will be a good child and take it as you ought—but dear me! how she is growing," said Mrs. Gary, turning to Mme. Ricard; "I cannot talk about Daisy as a 'child' much longer. She's tall."

"Not too tall," said madame.

"No, but she is going to be tall. She has a right; her mother is tall, and her father. Daisy, my dear, I do believe you are going to look like your mother. You'll be very handsome if you do. And yet, you look different——"

"Miss Randolph will not shame anybody belonging to her," said Mme. Ricard, graciously.

"Well, I suppose not," said my aunt. "I was going to tell you what your father said, Daisy. He said—you know it takes a long while to get to China and back, and if it does him good he will stay a little while there; and then there's the return voyage, and there may be delays; so altogether it was impossible to say exactly how long he and your mother will be gone. I mean, it was impossible to know certainly that they would be able to come home by next summer; indeed I doubt if your father ever does come home."

I waited in silence.

"So altogether," my aunt went on, turning for a moment to Mme. Ricard, "there was a doubt about it; and your father said, he charged me to tell Daisy, that if she will make herself contented—that is, supposing they cannot come home next year, you know—if she will make herself happy and be patient and bear one or two years more, and stay at school and do the best she can, then, the year after next or the next year he will send for you, your father says, unless they come home themselves—they will send for you; and then, your father says, he will give you any request you like to make of him. Ask anything you can think of, that you would like best, and he will do it or get it, whatever it is. He didn't say like King Herod, 'to the half of his kingdom,' but I suppose he meant that. And meanwhile, you know you have a guardian now, Daisy, and there is no use for me in your affairs; and having conveyed to you your mother's gifts and your father's promises, I suppose there is nothing further for me to do to you."

I was silent yet, thinking. Two years more would be a dear purchase of any pleasure that might come after. Two years! And four were gone already. It seemed impossible to wait or to bear it. I heard no more of what my aunt was saying, till she turned to me again and asked, "Where are you going to pass the vacation?"

I did not know, for Mrs. Sandford was obliged to be with her sister still, so that I could not go to Melbourne.

"Well, if your new guardian thinks well of it—you can consult him if it is necessary—and if he does not object, you can be with me if you like. Preston has leave of absence this summer, I believe; and he will be with us."

It was in effect arranged so. My aunt took me about the country from one watering place to another; from Saratoga to the White Mountains; and Preston's being with us made it a gay time. Preston had been for two years at West Point; he was grown and improved everybody said; but to me he was just the same. If anything, not improved; the old grace and graciousness of his manner was edged with an occasional hardness or abruptness which did not use to belong to him, and which I did not understand. There seemed to be a latent cause of irritation somewhere.

However, my summer went off smoothly enough. September brought me back to Mme. Ricard's, and in view of Miss Cardigan's late roses and budding chrysanthemums. I was not sorry. I had set my heart on doing as much as could be done in these next two years, if two they must be.

I was the first in my room; but before the end of the day they all came pouring in; the two older and the two younger girls. "Here's somebody already," exclaimed Miss Macy as she saw me. "Why, Daisy Randolph! is it possible that's you? Is it Daisy Randolph? What have you done to yourself? How you have improved!"

"She is very much improved," said Miss Bentley more soberly.

"She has been learning the fashions," said Miss Lansing, her bright eyes dancing as good-humouredly as ever. "Daisy, now when your hair gets long you'll look quite nice. That frock is made very well."

"She is changed," said Miss St. Clair, with a look I could not quite make out.

"No," I said; "I hope I am not changed."

"Your dress is," said St. Clair.

I thought of Dr. Sandford's "L'habit, c'est l'homme". "My mother had this dress made," I said; "and I ordered the other one; that is all the difference."

"You're on the right side of the difference, then," said Miss St. Clair.

"Has your mother come back, Daisy?" Miss Lansing asked.

"Not yet. She sent me this from Paris."

"It's very pretty!" she said, with, I saw, an increase of admiration; but St. Clair gave me another strange look. "How much prettier Paris things are than American!" Lansing went on. "I wish I could have all my dresses from Paris. Why, Daisy, you've grown handsome."

"Nonsense!" said Miss Macy; "she always was, only you didn't see it."

"Style is more than a face," said Miss St. Clair cavalierly. Somehow I felt that this little lady was not in a good mood awards me. I boded mischief; for being nearly of an age, we were together in most of our classes, studied the same things, and recited at the same times. There was an opportunity for clashing.

They soon ran off, all four, to see their friends and acquaintances and learn the news of the school. I was left alone, making my arrangement of clothes and things in my drawer and my corner of the closet; and I found that some disturbance, in those few moments, had quite disarranged the thoughts of my heart. They were peaceful enough before. There was some confusion now. I could not at first tell what was uppermost; only that St. Clair's words were those that most returned to me. "She has changed." Had I changed? or was I going to change? was I going to enter the lists of fashion with my young companions, and try who would win the race? No doubt my mother could dress me better than almost any of their mothers could dress them; what then? would this be a triumph? or was this the sort of name and notoriety that became and befitted a servant of Jesus? I could not help my dresses being pretty; no, but I could help making much display of them. I could wear my own school plaid when the weather grew cooler; and one or two others of my wardrobe were all I need show. "Style is more than a face." No doubt. What then? Did I want style and a face too? Was I wishing to confound St. Clair? Was I escaping already from that bond and a mark of a Christian—"The world knoweth us not?" I was startled and afraid. I fell down on my knees by the side of my bed, and tried to look at the matter as God looked at it. And the Daisy I thought he would be pleased with, was one who ran no race for worldly supremacy. I resolved she should not. The praise of God, I thought, was far better than the praise of men.

My mind was quite made up when I rose from my knees; but I looked forward to a less quiet school term than the last had been. Something told me that the rest of the girls would take me up now, for good and for evil. My Paris dress set me in a new position, no longer beneath their notice. I was an object of attention. Even that first evening I felt the difference.

"Daisy, when is your mother coming home?" "Oh, she is gone to China; Daisy's mother is gone to China!"—"She'll bring you lots of queer things, won't she?"—"What a sweet dress!"—"That didn't come from China?"—"Daisy, who's head in mathematics, you or St. Clair? I hope you will get before her!"

"Why?" I ventured to ask.

"Oh, you're the best of the two; everybody knows that. But St. Clair is smart, isn't she?"

"She thinks she is," answered another speaker; "she believes she's at the tip-top of creation; but she never had such a pretty dress on as that in her days; and she knows it and she don't like it. It's real fun to see St. Clair beat; she thinks she is so much better than other girls, and she has such a way of twisting that upper lip of hers. Do you know how St. Clair twists her upper lip? Look!—she's doing it now."

"She's handsome though, ain't she?" said Miss Macy. "She'll be beautiful."

"No," said Mlle. Genevieve; "not that. Never that. She will be handsome; but beauty is a thing of the soul. She will not be beautiful. Daisy, are you going to work hard this year?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"I believe you," she said, taking my face between her two hands and kissing it.

"Whoever saw Mlle. Genevieve do that before!" said Miss Macy, as the other left us. "She is not apt to like the scholars."

I knew she had always liked me. But everybody had always liked me, I reflected; this time at school was the first of my knowing anything different. And in this there now came a change. Since my wearing and using the Paris things sent to me by my mother, which I dared not fail to use and wear, I noticed that my company was more sought in the school. Also my words were deferred to, in a way they had not been before. I found, and it was not an unpleasant thing, that I had grown to be a person of consequence. Even with the French and English teachers; I observed that they treated me with more consideration. And so I reflected within myself again over Dr. Sandford's observation, "L'habit, c'est l'homme." Of course it was a consideration given to my clothes, a consideration also to be given up if I did not wear such clothes. I saw all that. The world knew me, just for the moment.

Well, the smooth way was very pleasant. I had it with everybody for a time.

My little room-mate and classmate St. Clair was perhaps the only exception to the general rule. I never felt that she liked me much. She let me alone, however; until one unlucky day—I do not mean to call it unlucky, either—when we had, as usual, compositions to write, and the theme given out was "Ruins." It was a delightful theme to me. I did not always enjoy writing compositions; this one gave me permission to roam in thoughts and imaginations that I liked. I went back to my old Egyptian studies at Magnolia, and wrote my composition about "Karnak." The subject was full in my memory; I had gone over and over and all through it; I had measured the enormous pillars and great gateways, and studied the sculpture on the walls, and paced up and down the great avenue of sphinxes. Sethos, and Amunoph and Rameses, the second and third, were all known and familiar to me; and I knew just where Shishak had recorded his triumphs over the land of Judea. I wrote my composition with the greatest delight. The only danger was that I might make it too long.

One evening I was using the last of the light, writing in the window recess of the school parlour, when I felt a hand laid on my shoulders.

"You are so hard at work!" said the voice of Mlle. Genevieve.

"Yes, mademoiselle, I like it."

"Have you got all the books and all that you want?"

"Books, mademoiselle?"—I said wondering.

"Yes; have you got all you want?"

"I have not got any books," I said; "there are none that I want in the school library."

"Have you never been in madame's library?"

"No, mademoiselle."

"Come!"

I jumped up and followed her, up and down stairs and through halls and turnings, till she brought me into a pretty room lined with books from floor to ceiling. Nobody was there. Mademoiselle lit the gas with great energy, and then turned to me, her great black eyes shining.

"Now what do you want, mon enfant? here is everything."

"Is there anything about Egypt?"

"Egypt! Are you in Egypt? See here—look, here is Denon—here is Laborde; here are two or three more. Do you like that? Ah! I see by the way your grey eyes grow big—Now sit down, and do what you like. Nobody will disturb you. You can come here every evening for the hour before tea."

Mademoiselle scarce stayed for my thanks, and left me alone. I had not seen either Laborde or Denon in my grandfather's library at Magnolia; they were after his time. The engravings and illustrations also had not been very many or very fine in his collection of travellers' books. It was the greatest joy to me to see some of those things in Mme. Ricard's library, that I had read and dreamed about so long in my head. It was adding eyesight to hearsay. I found a good deal too that I wanted to read, in these later authorities. Evening after evening I was in madame's library, lost among the halls of the old Egyptian conquerors.

The interest and delight of my work quite filled me, so that the fate of my composition hardly came into my thoughts, or the fact that other people were writing compositions too. And when it was done, I was simply very sorry that it was done. I had not written it for honour or for duty, but for love. I suppose that was the reason why it succeeded. I remember I was anything but satisfied with it myself, as I was reading it aloud for the benefit of my judges. For it was a day of prize compositions; and before the whole school and even some visitors, the writings of the girls were given aloud, each by its author. I thought, as I read mine, how poor it was, and how magnificent my subject demanded that it should be. Under the shade of the great columns, before those fine old sphinxes, my words and myself seemed very small. I sat down in my place again, glad that the reading was over.

But there was a little buzz; then a dead expectant silence; then Mme. Ricard arose. My composition had been the last one. I looked up with the rest, to hear the award that she would speak; and was at first very much confounded to hear my own name called. "Miss Randolph—" It did not occur to me what it was spoken for; I sat still a moment in a maze. Mme. Ricard stood waiting; all the room was in a hush.

"Don't you hear yourself called?" said a voice behind me. "Why don't you go?"

I looked round at Miss Macy, who was my adviser, then doubtfully I looked away from her and caught the eyes of Mlle. Genevieve. She nodded and beckoned me to come forward. I did it hastily then, and found myself curtseying in front of the platform where stood madame.

"The prize is yours, Miss Randolph," she said graciously. "Your paper is approved by all the judges."

"Quite artistic,"—I heard a gentleman say at her elbow.

"And it shows an amount of thorough study and perfect preparation, which I can but hold up as a model to all my young ladies. You deserve this, my dear."

I was confounded; and a low curtsey was only a natural relief to my feelings. But madame unhappily took it otherwise.

"This is yours," she said, putting into my hands an elegant little bronze standish;—"and if I had another prize to bestow for grace of good manners, I am sure I would have the pleasure of giving you that too."

I bent again before madame, and got back to my seat as I could. The great business of the day was over, and we soon scattered to our rooms. And I had not been in mine five minutes before the penalties of being distinguished began to come upon me.

"Well, Daisy!" said Miss Lansing,—"you've got it. How pretty! isn't it, Macy?"

"It isn't a bit prettier than it ought to be, for a prize in such a school," said Miss Macy. "It will do."

"I've seen handsomer prizes," said Miss Bentley.

"But you've got it, more ways than one, Daisy," Miss Lansing went on. "I declare! Aren't you a distinguished young lady! Madame, too! why we all used to think we behaved pretty well before company,—didn't we, St. Clair?"

"I hate favour and favouritism!" said that young lady, her upper lip taking the peculiar turn to which my attention had once been called. "Madame likes whatever is French."

"But Randolph is not French, are you, Randolph?" said Blackeyes, who was good-natured through everything.

"Madame is not French herself," said Miss Bentley.

"I hate everything at school!" St. Clair went on.

"It's too bad," said her friend. "Do you know, Daisy, St. Clair always has the prize for compositions. What made you go and write that long stuff about Rameses? the people didn't understand it, and so they thought it was fine."

"I am sure there was a great deal finer writing in Faustina's composition," said Miss Bentley.

I knew very well that Miss St. Clair had been accustomed to win this half-yearly prize for good writing. I had expected nothing but that she would win it this time. I had counted neither on my own success nor on the displeasure it would raise. I took my hat and went over to my dear Miss Cardigan; hoping that ill-humour would have worked itself out by bed-time. But I was mistaken.

St Clair and I had been pretty near each other in our classes, though once or twice lately I had got an advantage over her; but we had kept on terms of cool social distance until now. Now the spirit of rivalry was awake. I think it began to stir at my Paris dresses and things; Karnak and Mme. Ricard finished the mischief.

On my first coming to school I had been tempted in my horror at the utter want of privacy to go to bed without prayer; waiting till the rest were all laid down and asleep and the lights out, and then slipping out of bed with great care not to make a noise, and watching that no whisper of my lips should be loud enough to disturb anybody's slumbers. But I was sure after a while, that this was a cowardly way of doing; and I could not bear the words, "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He cometh in the glory of His Father." I determined in the vacation that I would do so no more, cost what it might the contrary. It cost a tremendous struggle. I think, in all my life I have done few harder things, than it was to me then to kneel down by the side of my bed in full blaze of the gaslights and with four curious pairs of eyes around to look on; to say nothing of the four busy tongues wagging about nothing all the time. I remember what a hush fell upon them the first night; while beyond the posture of prayer I could do little. Only unformed or half formed thoughts and petitions struggled in my mind, through a crowd of jostling regrets and wishes and confusions, in which I could hardly distinguish anything. But no explosion followed, of either ridicule or amusement, and I had been suffered from that night to do as I would, not certainly always in silence, but quite unmolested.

I had carried over my standish to Miss Cardigan to ask her to take care of it for me; I had no place to keep it. But Miss Cardigan was not satisfied to see the prize; she wanted to hear the essay read; and was altogether so elated that a little undue elation perhaps crept into my own heart. It was not a good preparation for what was coming.

I went home in good time. In the hall, however, Mlle. Genevieve seized upon me; she had several things to say, and before I got up stairs to my room all the rest of its inmates were in bed. I hoped they were asleep. I heard no sound while I was undressing, nor while I knelt, as usual now, by my bedside. But as I rose from my knees I was startled by a sort of grunt that came from St. Clair's corner.

"Humph!—Dear me! we're so good,—Grace and Devotion,—Christian grace, too!"

"Hold your tongue, St. Clair," said Miss Macy, but not in a way, I thought, to check her; if she could have been checked.

"But it's too bad, Macy," said the girl. "We're all so rough, you know. We don't know how to behave ourselves; we can't make curtseys; our mothers never taught us anything,—and dancing masters are no good. We ought to go to Egypt. There isn't anything so truly dignified as a pyramid. There is a great deal of a plomb there!"

"Who talked about a plomb?" said Miss Bentley.

"You have enough of that, at any rate, Faustina," said Lansing.

"Mrs. St. Clair's child ought to have that," said Miss Macy.

"Ah, but it isn't Christian grace, after all," persisted Faustina. "You want a cross at the top of a pyramid to make it perfect."

"Hush, Faustina!" said Miss Macy.

"It's fair,"—said Miss Bentley.

"You had better not talk about Christian grace, girls. That isn't a matter of opinion."

"Oh, isn't it!" cried St. Clair, half rising up in her bed. "What is it, then?"

Nobody answered.

"I say!—Macy, what is Christian grace—if you know! If you don't know, I'll put you in the way to find out."

"How shall I find out?"

"Will you do it, if I show it you?"

"Yes."

"Ask Randolph. That's the first step. Ask her,—yes! just ask her, if you want to know. I wish Mme. Ricard was here to hear the answer."

"Nonsense!" said Macy.

"Ask her! You said you would. Now ask her."

"What is Christian grace, Daisy?" said Miss Bentley.

I heard, but I would not answer. I hoped the storm would blow over, after a puff or two. But Blackeyes, without any ill-nature, I think, which was not in her, had got into the gale. She slipped out of bed and came to my side, putting her hand on my shoulder and bringing her laughing mouth down near my ear. A very angry impulse moved me before she spoke.

"Daisy!"—she said, laughing, in a loud whisper,—"come, wake up! you're not asleep, you know. Wake up and tell us;—everybody knows you know;—what is Christian grace? Daisy!—"

She shook me a little.

"If you knew, you would not ask me,"—I said in great displeasure. But a delighted shout from all my room-mates answered this unlucky speech, which I had been too excited to make logical.

"Capital!" cried St. Clair. "That's just it—we don't know; and we only want to find out whether she does. Make her tell, Lansing—prick a little pin into her—that will bring it out."

I was struggling between anger and sorrow, feeling very hurt, and at the same time determined not to cry. I kept absolutely still, fighting the fight of silence with myself. Then Lansing, in a fit of thoughtless mischief, finding her shakes and questions vain, actually put in practice St. Clair's suggestion, and attacked me with a pin from the dressing table. The first prick of it overthrew the last remnant of my patience.

"Miss Lansing!"—I exclaimed, rousing up in bed and confronting her. They all shouted again.

"Now we'll have it!" cried St. Clair. "Keep cool, Blackeyes; let's hear—we'll have an exposition now. Theme, Christian grace."

Ah, there rushed through my heart with her words a remembrance of other words—a fluttering vision of something "gentle and easy to be entreated"—"first pure, then peaceable"—"gentleness, goodness, meekness."—But the grip of passion held them all down or kept them all back. After St. Clair's first burst, the girls were still and waited for what I would say. I was facing Miss Lansing, who had taken her hand from my shoulder.

"Are you not ashamed of yourself?" I said; and I remember I thought how my mother would have spoken to them. "Miss Lansing's good nature"—I went on slowly,—"Miss Macy's kindness—Miss Bentley's independence—and Miss St. Clair's good breeding!"—

"And Miss Randolph's religion!" echoed the last-named, with a quiet distinctness which went into my heart.

"What about my independence?" said Miss Bentley.

"Now we've got enough, girls,—lie down and go to sleep," said Miss Macy. "There's quite enough of this. There was too much before we began. Stop where you are."

They did not stop, however, without a good deal of noisy chaffing and arguing, none of which I heard. Only the words, "Miss Randolph's religion," rung in my ears. I lay down with them lying like lead on my heart. I went to sleep under them. I woke up early, while all the rest were asleep, and began to study them.

"Miss Randolph's religion!" If it had been only that, only mine. But the religion I professed was the religion of Christ; the name I was called by was His name, the thing I had brought into discredit was His truth. I hope in all my life I may never know again the heart-pangs that this thought cost me. I studied how to undo the mischief I had done. I could find no way. I had seemed to prove my religion an unsteady, superficial thing; the evidence I had given I could not withdraw; it must stand. I lay thinking, with the heartache, until the rousing bell rang, and the sleepers began to stir from their slumbers. I got up and began to dress with the rest.

"What was it all that happened last night?" said Miss Lansing.

"Advancement in knowledge,"—said Miss St. Clair.

"Now, girls—don't begin again," said Miss Macy.

"Knowledge is a good thing," said the other, with pins in her mouth. "I intend to take every opportunity that offers of increasing mine; especially I mean to study Egyptians and Christians. I haven't any Christians among my own family or acquaintance—so you see, naturally, Macy, I am curious; and when a good specimen offers—"

"I am not a good specimen," I said.

"People are not good judges of themselves, it is said," the girl went on. "Everybody considers Miss Randolph a sample of what that article ought to be."

"You don't use the word right," remarked Miss Macy. "A sample is taken from what is,—not from what ought to be."

"I don't care," was St. Clair's reply.

"I did not behave like a Christian last night," I forced myself to say. "I was impatient."

"Like an impatient Christian then, I suppose," said St Clair.

I felt myself getting impatient again, with all my sorrow and humiliation of heart. And yet more humbled at the consciousness, I hastened to get out of the room. It was a miserable day, that day of my first school triumphs, and so were several more that followed. I was very busy; I had no time for recollection and prayer; I was in the midst of gratulations and plaudits from my companions and the teachers; and I missed, O how I missed the praise of God. I felt like a traitor. In the heat of the fight I had let my colours come to the ground. I had dishonoured my Captain. Some would say it was a little thing; but I felt then and I know now, there are no little things; I knew I had done harm; how much it was utterly beyond my reach to know.

As soon as I could I seized an opportunity to get to Miss Cardigan. I found her among her flowers, nipping off here a leaf and there a flower that had passed its time; so busy, that for a few moments she did not see that I was different from usual. Then came the question which I had been looking for.

"Daisy, you are not right to-day?"

"I haven't been right since I got that standish," I burst forth.

Miss Cardigan looked at me again, and then did what I had not expected; she took my head between her two hands and kissed me. Not loosing her hold, she looked into my face.

"What is it, my pet?"

"Miss Cardigan," I said, "can any one be a Christian and yet—yet—"

"Do something unworthy a Christian?" she said. "I wot well they can! But then, they are weak Christians."

I knew that before. But somehow, hearing her say it brought the shame and the sorrow more fresh to the surface. The tears came. Miss Cardigan pulled me into the next room and sat down, drawing me into her arms; and I wept there with her arms about me.

"What then, Daisy?" she asked at length, as if the suspense pained her.

"I acted so, Miss Cardigan," I said; and I told her all about it.

"So the devil has found a weak spot in your armour," she said. "You must guard it well, Daisy."

"How can I?"

"How can you? Keep your shield before it, my bairn. What is your shield for? The Lord has given you a great strong shield, big enough to cover you from head to foot, if your hands know how to manage it."

"What is that, Miss Cardigan?"

"The shield of faith, dear. Only believe. According to your faith be it unto you."

"Believe what?" I asked, lifting my head at last.

"Believe that if you are a weak little soldier, your Captain knows all about it; and any fight that you go into for His sake, He will bear you through. I don't care what. Any fight, Daisy."

"But I got impatient," I said, "at the girls' way of talking."

"And perhaps you were a wee bit set up in your heart because you got the prize of the day."

"Proud!" said I.

"Don't it look like it? Even proud of being a Christian, mayhap."

"Could I!" I said. "Was I?"

"It wouldn't be the first time one with as little cause had got puffed up a bit. But heavenly charity 'is not puffed up.'"

"I know that," I said and my tears started afresh.

"How shall I help it in future?" I asked after a while, during which my friend had been silent.

"Help it?" she said cheerfully. "You can't help it—but Jesus can."

"But my impatience, and—my pride," I said, very downcast.

"'Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; when I fall I shall arise.' But there is no need you should fall, Daisy. Remember 'the Lord is able to make him stand'—may be said of every one of the Lord's people."

"But will He keep me from impatience, and take pride out of my heart? Why, I did not know it was there, Miss Cardigan."

"Did He say 'Whatsoever you shall ask in my name, I will do it?' And when He has written 'Whatsoever,' are you going to write it over and put 'anything not too hard'? Neither you nor me, Daisy?"

"Whatsoever, Miss Cardigan," I said slowly.

"He said so. Are you going to write it over again?"

"No," I said. "But then, may one have anything one asks for."

"Anything in the world—if it is not contrary to His will—provided we ask in faith, nothing doubting. 'For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.'"

"But how can we know what is according to His will?"

"This is, at any rate," said Miss Cardigan; "for He has commanded us to be holy as He is holy."

"But—other things?" I said. "How can one ask for everything 'in faith, nothing wavering?' How can one be sure?"

"Only just this one way, Daisy, my dear," Miss Cardigan answered; and I remember to this day the accent of her native land which touched every word. "If ye're wholly the Lord's—wholly, mind,—ye'll not like aught but what the Lord likes; ye'll know what to ask for, and ye'll know the Lord will give it to you:—that is, if ye want it enough. But a 'double-minded man is unstable in all his ways;' and his prayers can't hit the mark, no more than a gun that's twisted when it's going off."

"Then,"—I began and stopped, looking at her with my eyes full of tears.

"Ay," she said,—"just so. There's no need that you nor me should be under the power of the evil one, for we're free. The Lord's words arn't too good to be true: every one of 'em is as high as heaven; and there isn't a sin nor an enemy but you and I may be safe from, if we trust the Lord."

I do not remember any more of the conversation. I only know that the sun rose on my difficulties, and the shadows melted away. I had a happy evening with my dear old friend, and went home quite heart-whole.



CHAPTER XIII.

GREY COATS.

I went back to school comforted. I had got strength to face all that might be coming in the future. And life has been a different thing to me ever since. Paul's words, "I can do all things through Christ,"—I have learned are not his words any more than mine.

From that time I grew more and more popular in the school. I cannot tell why; but popularity is a thing that grows upon its own growth. It was only a little while before my companions almost all made a pet of me. It is humbling to know that this effect was hastened by some of the French dresses my mother had sent me, and which convenience obliged me to wear. They were extremely pretty; the girls came round me to know where I got them, and talked about who I was; and "Daisy Randolph," was the name most favoured by their lips from that time until school closed. With the exception, I must add, of my four room-mates. Miss St. Clair held herself entirely aloof from me, and the others chose her party rather than mine. St. Clair never lost, I think, any good chance or omitted any fair scheme to provoke me; but all she could do had lost its power. I tried to soften her; but Faustina was a rock to my advances. I knew I had done irreparable wrong that evening; the thought of it was almost the only trouble I had during those months.

An old trouble was brought suddenly home to me one day. I was told a person wanted to speak to me in the lower hall. I ran down, and found Margaret. She was in the cloak and dress I had bought for her; looking at first very gleeful, and then very business-like, as she brought out from under her cloak a bit of paper folded with something in it.

"What is this?" I said, finding a roll of bills.

"It's my wages, Miss Daisy. I only kept out two dollars, ma'am—I wanted a pair of shoes so bad—and I couldn't be let go about the house in them old shoes with holes in 'em; there was holes in both of 'em, Miss Daisy."

"But your wages, Margaret?" I said—"I have nothing to do with your wages."

"Yes, Miss Daisy—they belongs to master, and I allowed to bring 'em to you. They's all there so fur. It's all right."

I felt the hot shame mounting to my face. I put the money back in Margaret's hand, and hurriedly told her to keep it; we were not at Magnolia; she might do what she liked with the money; it was her own earnings.

I shall never forget the girl's confounded look, and then her grin of brilliant pleasure. I could have burst into tears as I went up the stairs, thinking of others at home. Yet the question came too, would my father like what I had been doing? He held the girl to be his property and her earnings his earnings. Had I been giving Margaret a lesson in rebellion, and preparing her to claim her rights at some future day? Perhaps. And I made up my mind that I did not care. Live upon stolen money I would not, any more than I could help. But was I not living on it all the while? The old subject brought back! I worried over it all the rest of the day, with many a look forward and back.

As the time of the vacation drew near, I looked hard for news of my father and mother, or tidings of their coming home. There were none. Indeed, I got no letters at all. There was nothing to cause uneasiness; the intervals were often long between one packet of letters and the next; but I wanted to hear of some change now that the school year was ended. It had been a good year to me. In that little world I had met and faced some of the hardest temptations of the great world; they could never be new to me again; and I had learned both my weakness and my strength.

No summons to happiness reached me that year. My vacation was spent again with my Aunt Gary, and without Preston. September saw me quietly settled at my studies for another school year; to be gone through with what patience I might.

That school year had nothing to chronicle. I was very busy, very popular, kindly treated by my teachers, and happy in a smooth course of life. Faustina St. Clair had been removed from the school; to some other I believe; and with her went all my causes of annoyance. The year rolled round, my father and mother in China or on the high seas; and my sixteenth summer opened upon me.

A day or two before the close of school, I was called to the parlour to see a lady. Not my aunt; it was Mrs. Sandford; and the doctor was with her.

I had not seen Mrs. Sandford, I must explain, for nearly a year; she had been away in another part of the country, far from New York.

"Why, Daisy!—is this Daisy?" she exclaimed.

"Is it not?" I asked.

"Not the old Daisy. You are so grown, my dear!—so—That's right, Grant; let us have a little light to see each other by."

"It is Miss Randolph—" said the doctor, after he had drawn up the window shade.

"Like her mother! isn't she? and yet, not like—"

"Not at all like."

"She is, though, Grant; you are mistaken; she is like her mother; though as I said, she isn't. I never saw anybody so improved. My dear, I shall tell all my friends to send their daughters to Mme. Ricard."

"Dr. Sandford," said I, "Mme. Ricard does not like to have the sun shine into this room."

"It's Daisy, too," said the doctor, smiling, as he drew down the shade again. "Don't you like it, Miss Daisy?"

"Yes, of course," I said; "but she does not."

"It is not at all a matter of course," said he; "except as you are Daisy. Some people, as you have just told me, are afraid of the sun."

"Oh, that is only for the carpets," I said.

Dr. Sandford gave me a good look, like one of his looks of old times, that carried me right back somehow to Juanita's cottage.

"How do you do, Daisy?"

"A little pale," said Mrs. Sandford.

"Let her speak for herself."

I said I did not know I was pale.

"Did you know you had head-ache a good deal of the time?"

"Yes, Dr. Sandford, I knew that. It is not very bad."

"Does not hinder you from going on with study?"

"Oh no, never."

"You have a good deal of time for study at night, too, do you not?—after the lights are out."

"At night? how did you know that? But it is not always study."

"No. You consume also a good deal of beef and mutton, nowadays? You prefer substantials in food as in everything else?"

I looked at my guardian, very much surprised that he should see all this in my face, and with a little of my childish fascination about those steady blue eyes. I could not deny that in these days I scarcely lived by eating. But in the eagerness and pleasure of my pursuits I had not missed it, and amid my many busy and anxious thoughts I had not cared about it.

"That will do," said the doctor. "Daisy, have you heard lately from your father or mother?"

My breath came short as I said no.

"Nor have I. Failing orders from them, you are bound to respect mine; and I order you change of air, and to go wherever Mrs. Sandford proposes to take you."

"Not before school closes, Dr. Sandford?"

"Do you care about that?"

"My dear child," said Mrs. Sandford, "we are going to West Point—and we want to take you with us. I know you will enjoy it, my dear; and I shall be delighted to have you. But we want to go next week."

"Do you care, Daisy?" Dr. Sandford repeated.

I had to consider. One week more, and the examination would be over and the school term ended. I was ready for the examination; I expected to keep my standing, which was very high; by going away now I should lose that, and miss some distinction. So at least I thought. I found that several things were at work in my heart that I had not known were there. After a minute I told Mrs. Sandford I would go with her when she pleased.

"You have made up your mind that you do not care about staying to the end here?" said the doctor.

"Dr. Sandford," I said, "I believe I do care; but not about anything worth while."

He took both my hands, standing before me, and looked at me, I thought, as if I were the old little child again.

"A course of fresh air," he said, "will do you more good than a course of any other thing just now. And we may find 'wonderful things' at West Point, Daisy."

"I expect you will enjoy it, Daisy," Mrs. Sandford repeated.

There was no fear. I knew I should see Preston, at any rate; and I had been among brick walls for many months. I winced a little at the thought of missing all I had counted upon at the close of term; but it was mainly pride that winced, so it was no matter.

We left the city three or four days later. It was a June day—can I ever forget it? What a brilliance of remembrance comes over me now? The bustle of the close schoolrooms, the heat and dust of the sunny city streets, were all left behind in an hour; and New York was nowhere! The waves of the river sparkled under a summer breeze; the wall of the palisades stretched along, like the barriers of fairyland; so they seemed to me; only the barrier was open and I was about to enter. So till their grey and green ramparts were passed, and the broader reaches of the river beyond, and as evening began to draw in we came to higher shores and a narrower channel, and were threading our way among the lights and shadows of opposing headlands and hilltops. It grew but more fresh and fair as the sun got lower. Then, in a place where the river seemed to come to an end, the "Pipe of Peace" drew close in under the western shore, to a landing. Buildings of grey stone clustered and looked over the bank. Close under the bank's green fringes a little boat-house and large clean wooden pier received us; from the landing a road went steeply sloping up. I see it all now in the colours which clothed it then. I think I entered fairyland when I touched foot to shore. Even down at the landing, everything was clean and fresh and in order. The green branches of that thick fringe which reached to the top of the bank had no dust on them; the rocks were parti-coloured with lichens; the river was bright, flowing and rippling past; the "Pipe of Peace" had pushed off and sped on, and in another minute or two was turning the point, and then—out of sight. Stillness seemed to fill the woods and the air as the beat of her paddles was lost. I breathed stillness. New York was fifty miles away, physically and morally at the antipodes.

I find it hard to write without epithets. As I said I was in fairyland; and how shall one describe fairyland?

Dr. Sandford broke upon my reverie by putting me into the omnibus. But the omnibus quite belonged to fairyland too; it did not go rattling and jolting, but stole quietly up the long hill; letting me enjoy a view of the river and the hills of the opposite shore, coloured as they were by the setting sun, and crisp and sharp in the cool June air. Then a great round-topped building came in place of my view; the road took a turn behind it.

"What is that?" I asked the doctor.

"I am sorry, Daisy, I don't know. I am quite as ignorant as yourself."

"That's the riding-hall," I heard somebody say.

One omnibus full had gone up before us; and there were only two or three people in ours besides our own party. I looked round, and saw that the information had been given by a young man in a sort of uniform; he was all in grey, with large round gilt buttons on his coat, and a soldier's cap. The words had been spoken in a civil tone, that tempted me on.

"Thank you!" I said. "The riding-hall!—who rides in it?"

"We do," he said, and then smiled,—"The cadets."

It was a frank smile and a pleasant face and utterly the look of a gentleman. So, though I saw that he was very much amused, either at himself or me, I went on—

"And those other buildings?"

"Those are the stables."

I wondered at the neat beautiful order of the place. Then, the omnibus slowly mounting the hill, the riding-hall and stables were lost to sight. Another building, of more pretension, appeared on our left hand, on the brow of the ascent; our road turned the corner round this building, and beneath a grove of young trees the gothic buttresses and windows of grey stone peeped out. Carefully dressed green turf, with gravelled walks leading from different directions to the doors, looked as if this was a place of business. Somebody pulled the string here and the omnibus stopped.

"This is the library," my neighbour in grey remarked; and with that rising and lifting his cap, he jumped out. I watched him rapidly walking into the library; he was tall, very erect, with a fine free carriage and firm step. But then the omnibus was moving on and I turned to the other side. And the beauty took away my breath. There was the green plain girded with trees and houses, beset with hills, the tops of which I could see in the distance, with the evening light upon them. The omnibus went straight over the plain; green and smooth and fresh, it lay on the one side and on the other side of us, excepting one broad strip on the right. I wondered what had taken off the grass there; but then we passed within a hedge enclosure and drew up at the hotel steps.

"Have you met an acquaintance already, Daisy?" Dr. Sandford asked as he handed me out.

"An acquaintance?" said I. "No, but I shall find him soon, I suppose." For I was thinking of Preston. But I forgot Preston the next minute. Mrs. Sandford had seized my hand and drew me up the piazza steps and through the hall, out to the piazza at the north side of the house. I was in fairyland surely! I had thought so before, but I knew it now. Those grand hills, in the evening colours, standing over against each other on the east and on the west, and the full magnificent river lying between them, bright and stately, were like nothing I had ever seen or imagined. My memory goes back now to point after point of delight which bewildered me. There was a dainty little sail sweeping across just at the bend of the river; I have seen many since; I never forget that one. There was a shoulder of one of the eastern hills, thrown out towards the south-west, over which the evening light fell in a mantle of soft gold, with a fold of shadow on the other side. The tops of those eastern hills were warm with sunlight, and here and there a slope of the western hills. There was a point of the lower ground, thrust out into the river, between me and the eastern shore, which lay wholly in shadow, one shadow, one soft mass of dusky green, rounding out into a promontory. Above it, beyond it, at the foot of the hills, a white church spire rose as sharp as a needle. It is all before me, even the summer stillness in which my senses were wrapt. There was a clatter in the house behind me, but I did not hear it then.

I was obliged to go away to get ready for tea. The house was full; only one room could be spared for Mrs. Sandford and me. That one had been engaged beforehand, and its window looked over the same view I had seen from the piazza. I took my post at this window while waiting for Mrs. Sandford. Cooler and crisper the lights, cooler and grayer the shadows had grown; the shoulder of the east mountain had lost its mantle of light; just a gleam rested on a peak higher up; and my single white sail was getting small in the distance, beating up the river. I was very happy. My school year, practically, was finished, and I was vaguely expecting some order or turn of affairs which would join me to my father and mother. I remember well what a flood of satisfied joy poured into my heart as I stood at the window. I seemed to my self so very rich, to taste all that delight of hills and river; the richness of God's giving struck me with a sort of wonder. And then being so enriched and tasting the deep treasures of heaven and earth which I had been made to know, happy so exceedingly—it came to my heart with a kind of pang, the longing to make others know what I knew; and the secret determination to use all my strength as Christ's servant—in bringing others to the joy of the knowledge of Him.

I was called from my window then, and my view was exchanged for the crowded dining-room, where I could eat nothing. But after tea we got out upon the piazza again, and a soft north-west breeze seemed to be food and refreshment too. Mrs. Sandford soon found a colonel and a general to talk to; but Dr. Sandford sat down by me.

"How do you like it, Daisy?"

I told him, and thanked him for bringing me.

"Are you tired?"

"No—I don't think I am tired."

"You are not hungry, of course, for you can eat nothing. Do you think you shall sleep?"

"I don't feel like it now. I do not generally get sleepy till a great while after this."

"You will go to sleep somewhere about nine o'clock," said the doctor; "and not wake up till you are called in the morning."

I thought he was mistaken, but as I could not prove it I said nothing.

"Are you glad to get away from school?"

"On some accounts. I like school too, Dr. Sandford; but there are some things I do not like."

"That remark might be made, Daisy, about every condition of life with which I am acquainted."

"I could not make it just now," I said. He smiled.

"Have you secured a large circle of friends among your schoolmates,—that are to last for ever?"

"I do not think they love me well enough for that," I said, wondering somewhat at my guardian's questioning mood.

"Nor you them?"

"I suppose not."

"Why, Daisy," said Mrs. Sandford, "I am surprised! I thought you used to love everybody."

I tried to think how that might be, and whether I had changed. Dr. Sandford interrupted my thoughts again—

"How is it with friends out of school?"

"Oh, I have none," I said; thinking only of girls like myself.

"None?" he said. "Do you really know nobody in New York?"

"Nobody,—but one old lady."

"Who is that, Daisy?"

He asked short and coolly, like one who had a right to know; and then I remembered he had the right. I gave him Miss Cardigan's name and number.

"Who is she? and who lives with her?"

"Nobody lives with her; she has only her servants."

"What do you know about her then, besides what she has told you? Excuse me, and please have the grace to satisfy me."

"I know I must," I said half laughing.

"Must?"

"You know I must too, Dr. Sandford."

"I don't know it, indeed," said he. "I know I must ask; but I do not know what power can force you to answer."

"Isn't it my duty, Dr. Sandford?"

"Nobody but Daisy Randolph would have asked that question," he said. "Well, if duty is on my side, I know I am powerful. But, Daisy, you always used to answer me, in times when there was no duty in the case."

"I remember," I said, smiling to think of it; "but I was a child then, Dr. Sandford."

"Oh!—Well, apropos of duty, you may go on about Miss Cardigan."

"I do not know a great deal to tell. Only that she is very good, very kind to me and everybody; very rich, I believe; and very wise, I think. I know nothing more—except the way her money was made."

"How was it?"

"I have heard that her mother was a marketwoman," I said very unwillingly; for I knew the conclusions that would be drawn.

"Is it likely," Dr. Sandford said slowly, "that the daughter of a marketwoman should be a good friend in every respect for the daughter of Mrs. Randolph?"

"It may not be likely," I answered with equal slowness;—"but it is true."

"Can you prove your position, Daisy?"

"What is your objection to her, Dr. Sandford?"

"Simply what you have told me. The different classes of society are better apart."

I was silent. If Miss Cardigan was not of my class, I knew I wanted to be of hers. There were certain words running in my head about "a royal priesthood, a peculiar people," and certain other words too—which I thought it was no use to tell Dr. Sandford.

"She has no family, you say, nor friends who live with her, or whom you meet at her house?"

"None at all. I think she is quite alone."

There was silence again. That is, between the doctor and me. Mrs. Sandford and her officers kept up a great run of talk hard by.

"Now, Daisy," said the doctor, "you have studied the matter, and I do not doubt you have formed a philosophy of your own by this time. Pray make me the wiser."

"I have no philosophy of my own, Dr. Sandford."

"Your own thus far, that nobody shares it with you."

"Is that your notion of me?" I said, laughing.

"A very good notion. Nothing is worse than commonplace people. Indulge me, Daisy."

So I thought I had better.

"Dr. Sandford—if you will indulge me. What is your notion of dignity?"

He passed his hand over his hair, with a comical face. It was a very fine face, as I knew long ago; even a noble face. A steady, clear, blue eye like his, gives one a sure impression of power in the character, and of sweetness, too. I was glad he had asked me the question, but I waited for him to answer mine first.

"My notion of dignity!" he exclaimed. "I don't believe I have any, Daisy."

"No, but we are talking seriously."

"Very. We always are when you are one of the talkers."

"Then please explain your notion of dignity."

"I know it when I see it," said the doctor; "but faith! I don't know what makes it."

"Yes, but you think some people, or some classes, are set up above others."

"So do you."

"What do you think makes the highest class, then?"

"You are going too deep, or too high, which is the same thing. All I mean is, that certain feet which fate has planted on lofty levels, ought not to come down from them."

"But it is good to know where we stand."

"Very," said Dr. Sandford, laughing. That is, in his way of laughing. It was never loud.

"I will tell you where I want to stand," I went on. "It is the highest level of all. The Lord Jesus said, 'Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is MY BROTHER, and MY SISTER, and MOTHER.' I want to be one of those."

"But, Daisy," said Dr. Sandford, "the society of the world is not arranged on that principle."

I knew it very well. I said nothing.

"And you cannot, just yet, go out of the world."

It was no use to tell Dr. Sandford what I thought. I was silent still.

"Daisy," said he, "you are worse than you used to be." And I heard a little concern in his words, only half hid by the tone.

"You do not suppose that such words as those you quoted just now, were meant to be a practical guide in the daily affairs of life? Do you?"

"How can I help it, Dr. Sandford?" I answered. "I would like to have my friends among those whom the King will call His sisters and brothers."

"And what do you think of correct grammar, and clean hands?" he asked.

"Clean hands!" I echoed.

"You like them," he said, smiling. "The people you mean often go without them—if report says true."

"Not the people I mean," I said.

"And education, Daisy; and refined manners; and cultivated tastes; what will you do without all these? In the society you speak of they are seldom found."

"You do not know the society I speak of, Dr. Sandford; and Miss Cardigan has all these, more or less; besides something a great deal better."

Dr. Sandford rose up suddenly and introduced me to a Captain Southgate who came up; and the conversation ran upon West Point things and nothings after that. I was going back over my memory, to find in how far religion had been associated with some other valued things in the instances of my experience, and I heard little of what was said. Mr. Dinwiddie had been a gentleman, as much as any one I ever knew; he was the first. My old Juanita had the manners of a princess, and the tact of a fine lady. Miss Cardigan was a capital compound of sense, goodness, business energies, and gentle wisdom. The others—well, yes, they were of the despised orders of the world. My friend Darry, at the stables of Magnolia—my friend Maria, in the kitchen of the great house—the other sable and sober faces that came around theirs in memory's grouping—they were not educated nor polished nor elegant. Yet well I knew, that having owned Christ before men, He would own them before the angels of heaven; and what would they be in that day! I was satisfied to be numbered with them.

I slept, as Dr. Sandford had prophesied I would that night. I awoke to a vision of beauty.

My remembrance of those days that followed is like a summer morning, with a diamond hanging to every blade of grass.

I awoke suddenly, that first day, and rushed to the window. The light had broken, the sun was up; the crown of the morning was upon the heads of the hills; here and there a light wreath of mist lay along their sides, floating slowly off, or softly dispersing; the river lay in quiet beauty waiting for the gilding that should come upon it. I listened—the brisk notes of a drum and fife came to my ear, playing one after another joyous and dancing melody. I thought that never was a place so utterly delightsome as this place. With all speed I dressed myself, noiselessly, so as not to waken Mrs. Sandford; and then I resolved I would go out and see if I could not find a place where I could be by myself; for in the house there was no chance of it. I took Mr. Dinwiddie's Bible and stole downstairs. From the piazza where we had sat last night, a flight of steps led down. I followed it and found another flight, and still another. The last landed me in a gravelled path; one track went down the steep face of the bank, on the brow of which the hotel stood; another track crossed that and wound away to my right, with a gentle downward slope. I went this way. The air was delicious; the woods were musical with birds; the morning light filled my pathway and glancing from trees or rocks ahead of me, lured me on with a promise of glory. I seemed to gather the promise as I went, and still I was drawn farther and farther. Glimpses of the river began to show through the trees; for all this bank side was thickly wooded. I left walking and took to running. At last I came out upon another gravelled walk, low down on the hillside, lying parallel with the river and open to it. Nothing lay between but some masses of granite rock, grey and lichened, and a soft fringe of green underbrush and small wood in the intervals. Moreover, I presently found a comfortable seat on a huge grey stone, where the view was uninterrupted by any wood growth; and if I thought before that this was fairyland, I now almost thought myself a fairy. The broad river was at my feet; the morning light was on all the shores, sparkled from the granite rocks below me and flashed from the polished leaves, and glittered on the water; filling all the blue above with radiance; touching here and there a little downy cloud; entering in and lying on my heart. I shall never forget it. The taste of the air was as one tastes life and strength and vigour. It all rolled in on me a great burden of joy.

It was not the worst time or place in the world to read the Bible. But how all the voices of nature seemed to flow in and mix with the reading, I cannot tell, no more than I can number them; the whirr of a bird's wing, the liquid note of a wood thrush, the stir and movement of a thousand leaves, the gurgle of rippling water, the crow's call, and the song-sparrow's ecstasy. Once or twice the notes of a bugle found their way down the hill, and reminded me that I was in a place of delightful novelty. It was just a fillip to my enjoyment, as I looked on and off my page alternately.

By and by I heard footsteps, quick yet light footsteps, sounding on the gravel. Measured and quick they came; then two figures rounded a point close by me. There were two, but their footfalls had sounded as one. They were dressed alike, all in grey, like my friend in the omnibus. As they passed me, the nearest one hastily pulled off his cap, and I caught just a flash from a bright eye. It was the same. I looked after them as they left my point and were soon lost behind another; thinking that probably Preston was dressed so and had been taught to walk so; and with renewed admiration of a place where the inhabitants kept such an exquisite neatness in their dress and moved like music. There was a fulness of content in my mind, as at length I slowly went back up my winding path to the hotel, warned by the furious sounds of a gong that breakfast was in preparation.

As I toiled up the last flight of steps I saw Dr. Sandford on the piazza. His blue eye looked me all over and looked me through, I felt. I was accustomed to that, both from the friend and the physician, and rather liked it.

"What is on the other side of the house?" I asked.

"Let us go and see." And as we went, the doctor took my book from my hand to carry it for me. He opened it, too, and looked at it. On the other side or two sides of the house stretched away the level green plain. At the back of it, stood houses half hidden by trees; indeed all round two sides of the plain there was a border of buildings and of flourishing trees as well. Down the north side, from the hotel where we were, a road went winding: likewise under arching trees; here and there I could see cannon and a bit of some military work. All the centre of the plain was level and green, and empty; and from the hotel to the library stretched a broad strip of bare ground, brown and dusty, alongside of the road by which we had come across last night. In the morning sun, as indeed under all other lights and at all other hours, this scene was one of satisfying beauty. Behind the row of houses at the western edge of the plain, the hills rose up, green and wooded, height above height; and an old fortification stood out now under the eastern illumination, picturesque and grey, high up among them. As Dr. Sandford and I were silent and looking, I saw another grey figure pass down the road.

"Who are those people that wear grey, with a black stripe down the leg?" I asked.

"Grey?" said the doctor. "Where?"

"There is one yonder under the trees," I said, "and there was one in the omnibus yesterday. Are those the cadets?"

"I suppose so."

"Then Preston wears that dress. I wonder how I shall find him, Dr. Sandford?"

"Find whom?" said the doctor, waking up.

"My cousin Preston—Preston Gary. He is here."

"Here?" repeated the doctor.

"Yes—he is a cadet—didn't you know it? He has been here a long while; he has only one more year, I believe. How can we find him, Dr. Sandford?"

"I am ignorant, Daisy."

"But we must find him," I said, "for of course he will want to see me, and I want to see him, very much."

The doctor was silent, and I remember an odd sense I had that he was not pleased. I cannot tell how I got it; he neither did nor said anything to make me think so; he did not even look anywise different from usual; yet I felt it and was sure of it, and unspeakably mystified at it. Could Preston have been doing anything wrong? Yet the doctor would not know that, for he was not even aware that Preston was in the Military Academy till I told him.

"I do not know, Daisy," he said at last; "but we can find out. I will ask Captain Southgate or somebody else."

"Thank you," I said. "Who are those, Dr. Sandford, those others dressed in dark frock coats, with bright bars over their shoulders?—like that one just now going out of the gate?"

"Those are officers of the army."

"There are a good many of them. What are they here for? Are there many soldiers here?"

"No—" said the doctor, "I believe not. I think these gentlemen are put here to look after the grey coats—the cadets, Daisy, The cadets are here in training, you know."

"But that officer who just went out—who is walking over the plain now—he wore a sword, Dr. Sandford; and a red sash. They do not all wear them. What is that for?"

"What is under discussion?" said Mrs. Sandford, coming out. "How well Daisy looks this morning, don't she?"

"She has caught the military fever already," said the doctor. "I brought her here for a sedative; but I find it is no such matter."

"Sedative!" said Mrs. Sandford; but at this instant my ears were "caught" by a burst of music on the plain. Mrs. Sandford broke into a fit of laughter. The doctor's hand touched my shoulder.

"Get your hat, Daisy," he said, "I will go with you to hear it."

I might tell of pleasure from minute to minute of that day, and of the days following. The breath of the air, the notes of the wind instruments, the flicker of sunlight on the gravel, all come back to me as I write, and I taste them again. Dr. Sandford and I went down the road I have described, leading along the edge of the plain at its northern border; from which the view up over the river, between the hills, was very glorious. Fine young trees shaded this road; on one side a deep hollow or cup in the green plain excited my curiosity; on the other, lying a little down the bank, a military work of some odd sort planted with guns. Then one or two pyramidal heaps of cannon-balls by the side of the road, marked this out as unlike all other roads I had ever traversed. At the farther side of the plain we came to the row of houses I had seen from a distance, which ran north and south, looking eastward over all the plain. The road which skirted these houses was shaded with large old trees, and on the edge of the greensward under the trees we found a number of iron seats placed for the convenience of spectators. And here, among many others, Dr. Sandford and I sat down.

There was a long line of the grey uniforms now drawn up in front of us; at some little distance; standing still and doing nothing, that I could see. Nearer to us and facing them stood a single grey figure; I looked hard, but could not make out that it was Preston. Nearer still, stood with arms folded one of those whom the doctor had said were army officers; I thought, the very one I had seen leave the hotel; but all like statues, motionless and fixed. Only the band seemed to have some life in them.

"What is it, Dr. Sandford?" I whispered, after a few minutes of intense enjoyment.

"Don't know, Daisy."

"But what are they doing?"

"I don't know, Daisy."

I nestled down into silence again, listening, almost with a doubt of my own senses, as the notes of the instruments mingled with the summer breeze and filled the June sunshine. The plain looked most beautiful, edged with trees on three sides, and bounded to the east, in front of me, by a chain of hills soft and wooded, which I afterwards found were beyond the river. Near at hand, the order of military array, the flash of a sword, the glitter of an epaulette, the glance of red sashes here and there, the regularity of a perfect machine. I said nothing more to Dr. Sandford; but I gathered drop by drop the sweetness of the time.

The statues broke into life a few minutes later, and there was a stir of business of some sort; but I could make out nothing of what they were doing. I took it on trust, and enjoyed everything to the full till the show was over.



CHAPTER XIV.

YANKEES.

For several days I saw nothing of Preston. He was hardly missed.

I found that such a parade as that which pleased me the first morning came off twice daily; and other military displays, more extended and more interesting, were to be looked for every day at irregular times. I failed not of one. So surely as the roll of the drum or a strain of music announced that something of the sort was on hand, I caught up my hat and was ready. And so was Dr. Sandford. Mrs. Sandford would often not go; but the doctor's hat was as easily put on as mine, and as readily; and he attended me, I used to think, as patiently as a great Newfoundland dog. As patient, and as supreme. The evolutions of soldiers and clangour of martial music were nothing to him, but he must wait upon his little mistress. I mean of course the Newfoundland dog; not Dr. Sandford.