Melbourne House Part 23

"Preston, is the use of geography only to know where places are?"

"Well, that's pretty convenient," said Preston. "Daisy, just look for that bunch of grey silk ? I had it here a minute ago."

"But Preston, tell me what _is_ the use of it?"

"Why, my dear little Daisy ? thank you! ? you'd be all abroad without it."

"All abroad!" exclaimed Daisy.

"It comes to about that, I reckon. You wouldn't understand anything. How can you? Suppose I show you my pictures of the North American Indians ? they'll be as good as Chinese to you, if you don't know geography."

Daisy was silent, feeling puzzled.

"And," said Preston, binding his fly, "when you talk of the Crimea, you will not know whether the English came from the east or the west, nor whether the Russians are not living under the equator and eating ripe oranges."

"Don't they eat oranges?" said Daisy, seriously. But that question set Preston off into a burst of laughter, for which he atoned as soon as it was over by a very gentle kiss to his little cousin.

"Never mind, Daisy," he said; "I think you are better without geography. You aren't just like everybody else ? that's a fact."

"Daisy," said Captain Drummond, coming upon the scene, "do you allow such things?"

"It is Preston's manner of asking my pardon, Captain Drummond," Daisy answered, looking a little troubled, but in her slow, womanly way. The Captain could not help laughing in his turn.

"What offence has he been guilty of? ? tell me, and I will make him ask pardon in another manner. But, Daisy, do you reckon such a liberty no offence?"

"Not if I am willing he should take it," said Daisy.

The Captain seemed much amused. "My dear little lady!" he said, "it is good for me you are not half a score of years wiser. What were you talking about the Crimea? ? I heard the word as I came up."

"I asked Preston to show it to me on the map ? or he said he would."

"Come with me, and I'll do it. You shouldn't ask anybody but me about the Crimea."

So getting hold affectionately of Daisy's hand, he and she went off to the house. No one was in the library. The Captain opened a large map of Russia; Daisy got up in a chair, with her elbows on the great library table, and leaned over it, while the Captain drew up another chair and pointed out the Crimea and Sebastopol, and showed the course by which the English s.h.i.+ps had come, for Daisy took care to ask that. Then, finding so earnest a listener, he went on to describe to her the situation of other places on the Peninsula, and the character of the country, and the severities of the climate in the region of the great struggle. Daisy listened, with her eyes varying between Captain Drummond's face and the map. The Black Sea became known to Daisy thence and forever.

"I never thought geography was so interesting!" she remarked with a sigh, as the Captain paused. He smiled.

"Now, Daisy, you have something to tell me," he said.

"What?" said Daisy, looking up suddenly.

"Why, you wanted to know about soldiers ? don't you remember your promise?"

The child's face all changed; her busy, eager, animated look became on the instant thoughtful and still. Yet changed, as the Captain saw with some curiosity, not to lesser but to greater intentness.

"Well, Daisy?"

"Captain Drummond, if I tell you, I do not wish it talked about."

"Certainly not!" he said, suppressing a smile, and watched her while she got down from her chair and looked about among the book-shelves.

"Will you please put this on the table for me?" she said ? "I can't lift it."

"A Bible!" said the Captain to himself. "This is growing serious." But he carried the great quarto silently and placed it on the table. It was a very large volume, fall of magnificent engravings, which were the sole cause and explanation of its finding a place in Mr. Randolph's library.

He put it on the table and watched Daisy curiously, who, disregarding all the pictures, turned over the leaves hurriedly, till near the end of the book; then stopped, put her little finger under some words, and turned to him. The Captain looked and read ? over the little finger ? "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."

It gave the Captain a very odd feeling. He stopped, and read it two or three times over.

"But Daisy!" ? he said.

"What, Captain Drummond?"

"What has this to do with what we were talking about?"

"Would you please shut this up and put it away, first."

The Captain obeyed, and as he turned from the bookshelves Daisy took his hand again, and drew him, child-fas.h.i.+on, out of the house and through the shrubbery. He let her alone till she had brought him to a shady spot, where, under the thick growth of magnificent trees a rustic seat stood, in full view of the distant mountains and the river.

"Where is my answer, Daisy?" he said, as she let go his hand and seated herself.

"What was your question, Captain Drummond?"

"Now you are playing hide and seek with me. What have those words you showed me, ? what have they to do with our yesterday's conversation?"

"I would like to know," said Daisy, slowly, "what it means, to be a good soldier?"

"Why?"

"I think I have told you," she said.

She said it with the most unmoved simplicity. The Captain could not imagine what made him feel uncomfortable. He whistled.

"Daisy, you are incomprehensible!" he exclaimed, and, catching hold of her hand, he began a race down towards the river. Such a race as they had taken the day before. Through shade and through sun, down gra.s.sy steeps and up again, flying among the trees as if some one were after them, the Captain ran; and Daisy was pulled along with him. At the edge of the woods which crowned the river bank, he stopped and looked at Daisy who was all flushed and sparkling with exertion and merriment.

"Sit down there!" said he, putting her on the bank and throwing himself beside her. "Now you look as you ought to look!"

"I don't think mamma would think so," said Daisy, panting and laughing.

"Yes, she would. Now tell me ? do you call yourself a soldier?"

"I don't know whether there can be such little soldiers," said Daisy. "If there can be, I am."

"And what fighting do you expect to do, little one?"

"I don't know," said Daisy. "Not very well."

"What enemies are you going to face?"