Melbourne House Part 35

"Papa ? I wish I could die!" was the answer of the child's agony.

"Do you mean that you will not obey her, Daisy?"

"How can I, papa? how can I!" exclaimed Daisy.

"Do you think that song is so very bad, Daisy?"

"No, papa, it is very good for other days; but it is not holy." Her accent struck strangely upon Mr. Randolph's ear; and sudden contrasts rushed together oddly in his mind.

"Daisy, do you know that you are making yourself a judge of right and wrong? over your mother and over me?"

Daisy hid her face again in his breast; what could she answer?

Mr. Randolph unfolded the little palm, swollen and blistered from the marks of his ruler.

"Why did you offend me, Daisy?" he said, gravely.

"Oh, papa!" said Daisy, beside herself, ? "I didn't ? I couldn't ? I wouldn't, for anything in the world! but I couldn't offend the Lord Jesus!"

She was weeping again bitterly.

"That will not do," said Mr. Randolph. "You must find a way to reconcile both duties. I shall not take an alternative." But after that he said no more, and only applied himself to soothing Daisy; till she sat drooping in his arms, but still and calm. She started when the sound of steps and voices came upon the verandah.

"Papa, may I go?"

He let her go, and watched her measured steps through the long room to the door, and heard the bound they made as soon as she was outside of it. He rang the bell and ordered June to be called. She came.

"June," said Mr. Randolph, "I think Daisy wants to be taken care of to-day ? I wish you would not lose sight of her."

June courtesied her obedience.

A few minutes afterwards her noiseless steps entered Daisy's room. June's footfall was never heard about the house. As noiseless as a shadow she came into a room; as stealthily as a dark shadow she went out. Her movements were always slow; and whether from policy or caution originally, her tread would not waken a sleeping mouse. So she came into her little mistress's chamber now. Daisy was there, at her bureau, before an open drawer; as June advanced, she saw that a great stock of little pairs of gloves was displayed there, of all sorts, new and old; and Daisy was trying to find among them one that would do for her purpose. One after another was tried on the fingers of her right hand, and thrown aside; and tears were running over the child's cheeks and dropping into the drawer all the time.

June came near, with a sort of anxious look on her yellow face. It was strangely full of wrinkles and lines, that generally never stirred to express or reveal anything.

Suddenly she exclaimed, but June's very exclamations were in a smothered tone ?

"Oh, Miss Daisy! what have you done to your hand?"

"I haven't done anything to it," said Daisy, trying furtively to get rid of her tears, ? "but I want a glove to put on, June, and they are all too small. Is Cecilia at work here to- day?"

"Yes, Miss Daisy; but let me look at your hand! ? let me put some liniment on."

"No, I don't want it," said Daisy; and June saw the suppressed sob that was not allowed to come out into open hearing; ? "but June, just rip that glove, will you, here in the side seam; and then ask Cecilia to make a strip of lace-work there ? so that I can get it on." Daisy drew a fur glove over the wounded hand as she spoke ? it was the only one large enough ? and put on her flat hat.

"Miss Daisy, Mr. Randolph said I was to go with you anywhere you went ?to take care of you."

"Then come down to the beach, June; I'll be there."

Daisy stole down stairs and slipped out of the first door she came to. What she wanted was to get away from seeing anybody; she did not wish to see her mother, or Preston, or Captain Drummond, or Ransom; and she meant even if possible to wander off and not be at home for dinner. She could not bear the thought of the dinner-table, with all the faces round it. She stole out under the shrubbery, which soon hid her from view of the house.

It was a very warm day, the sun beating hot wherever it could touch at all. Daisy went languidly along under cover of the trees, wis.h.i.+ng to go faster, but not able, till she reached the bank. There she waited for June to join her, and together they went down to the river sh.o.r.e. Safe there from pursuit, on such a day, Daisy curled herself down in the shade with her back against a stone, and then began to think. She felt very miserable; not merely for what had pa.s.sed, but for a long stretch of trouble that she saw lying before her. Indeed where or how it was to end, Daisy had no idea. Her father indeed, she felt pretty sure would not willingly allow his orders to come in conflict with what she thought her duty; though if he happened to do it unconsciously, ? Daisy would not follow that train of thought. But here she was now, at this moment, engaged in a trial of strength with her mother; very unequal, for Daisy felt no power at all for the struggle, and yet she could not yield!

Where was it to end? and how many other like occasions of difference might arise, even after this one should somehow have been settled? Had the joy of being a servant of Jesus so soon brought trouble with it? Daisy had put the trunk of a large tree between her and June; but the mulatto woman, where she sat, heard the stifled sobs of the child. June's items of intelligence, picked up by eye and ear, had given her by this time an almost reverent feeling towards Daisy; she regarded her as hardly earthly; nevertheless, this sort of distress must not be suffered to go on, and she was appointed to prevent it.

"Miss Daisy ? it is luncheon time," she said, without moving.

Daisy gave no response. June waited, and then came before her and repeated her words.

"I am not going in."

"But you want your dinner, Miss Daisy."

"No, I don't, June. I don't want to go in."

June looked at her a minute. "I'll get you your luncheon out here, Miss Daisy. You'll be faint for want of something to eat. Will you have it out here?"

"You needn't say where I am, June."

June went off, and Daisy was left alone. Very weary and exhausted, she sat leaning her head against the stone at her side, in a sort of despairing quiet. The little ripple of the water on the pebbly sh.o.r.e struck her ear; it was the first thing eye or ear had perceived to be pleasant that day.

Daisy's thoughts went to the hand that had made the glittering river, with all its beauties and wonders; then they went to what Mr. Dinwiddie had said, that G.o.d will help His people when they are trying to do any difficult work for Him; He will take care of them; He will not forsake them. Suddenly it filled Daisy's soul like a flood, the thought that Jesus loves His people; that she was His little child and that He loved her; and all His wisdom and power and tenderness were round her and would keep her. Her trouble seemed to be gone, or it was like a cloud with sunlight s.h.i.+ning all over it. The very air was full of music, to Daisy's feeling, not her sense.

There never was such sunlight, or such music either, as this feeling of the love of Jesus. Daisy kneeled down by the rock, and rested her forehead against it, to pray for joy.

She was there still, when June came back, and stopped and looked at her, a vague expression of care sitting in her black eyes, into which now an unwonted moisture stole. June had a basket, and as soon as Daisy sat down again, she came up and began to take things out of it. She had brought everything for Daisy's dinner. There was a nice piece of beefsteak, just off the gridiron; and rice and potatoes; and a fine bowl of strawberries for dessert. June had left nothing; there was the roll and the salt, and a tumbler and a carafe of water. She set the other things about Daisy, on the ground and on the rock, and gave the plate of beefsteak into her hand.

"Miss Daisy, what will you do for a table?"

"It's nicer here than a table. How good you are, June. I didn't know I wanted it."

"I know you do, Miss Daisy."

And she went to her sewing, and sewed perseveringly, while Daisy eat her dinner.

"June, what o'clock is it."

"It's after one, ma'am."

"You haven't had your own dinner?"

June mumbled something, of which nothing could be understood except that it was a general abnegation of all desire or necessity for dinner on her own part.

"But you have not had it?" said Daisy.

"No, ma'am. They've done dinner by this time."

"June, I have eaten up all the beefsteak ? there is nothing left but some potato, and rice, and strawberries; but you shall have some strawberries."

June in vain protested. Daisy divided the strawberries into two parts, sugared them both, broke the remaining roll in two, and obliged June to take her share. When this was over, Daisy seated herself near June, and laid her head against her knee.

She could hardly hold it up.

"June," ? she said presently, "I think those people in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews ? you know."

"Yes, Miss Daisy."