Daisy in the Field Part 23

"You and I cannot be on two sides of anything, Daisy?"

"Papa - you know on what side of most things I am -" I replied to this difficult question.

"Do I? No, I do not know that I do. What side is it, Daisy?"

"On the Lord's side, papa, when I can find out what that is."

"Make me sure that you have found it, and I will be on that side too," he said, as he kissed me.

The words filled me with a great joy. For they were not spoken in defiance of the supposed condition, but rather, as it seemed to me, in desire and love of it. Had papa come to that?

The new joy poured like a flood over all the dry places in my heart, which had got into a very dry state with hearing the conversation of the evening. I went to bed tired and happy.

Nevertheless I awoke to the consciousness that I had a nice piece of navigation before me, and plenty of rough water in all probability. The best thing would be for me to be as silent as possible. Could I be silent? They all wanted to hear what I would say. Every eye had sought mine this past evening.

I was the first in the breakfast-room, and papa was the next.

We were alone. He took me tenderly in his arms and held me fast, looking at me and kissing me by turns.

"Are you well now, papa?" I asked him. "Are you quite well again?"

"Well enough," he answered; "not just as I was once."

"Why not, papa?"

"I have never quite got over that unlucky fall. It has left my head a little shaky, Daisy; and my strength - Never mind! you are my strength now, my pet. We should have gone home before this, only for the troubles breaking out there."

I leaned my head upon his breast, and wished the troubles were not! What a division those troubles made, unknown to him, between his heart's happiness and mine - yes, between him and me. Mamma came in and looked at us both.

"It is a very pretty picture," she said. And she kissed me, while papa did not let me out of his arms. "Daisy, you are a beauty."

"She is a great deal better than a beauty," said my father.

"But, now I look at you, Daisy - yes, you _are_ a beauty, certainly."

They both laughed heartily at the colour which all this raised in my face.

"Most exquisite, her skin is," said my mother, touching my cheek. "Did you ever see anything superior to it, Mr.

Randolph? Rose leaves are not any better than that. Pshaw, Daisy! - you must get accustomed to hear people say it."

"n.o.body shall say it to me, mamma, but you."

"No," said my father. "That is my view of it, too."

"Nonsense!" said mamma - "there are a thousand ways of doing the same thing, and you cannot stop them all. Your hair is as fine as possible, too, Daisy, although it has not had me to take care of it."

"But I did just as you told me with it, mamma," I said.

She kissed me again. "Did n.o.body ever tell you you were beautiful?" she asked archly. "Yes, I know that you did just as I told you. You always did, and always will. But did you not know that you were beautiful?"

"Speak, Daisy," said papa. Said as it was with a smile, it brought childish memories vividly back.

"Mamma," I said, "I have heard something of it - and I suppose it may be true."

They laughed, and mamma remarked that I was human yet. "There is a difference between the child and the woman, you will find, Mr. Randolph."

Papa answered, that it was no very remarkable token of humanity, to have eyes and ears.

"Daisy's eyes were always remarkable," said my mother.

"But, mamma," said I, "in other things there is no difference between the child and the woman. My outside may have altered - my mind is not changed at all; only grown."

"That will do," said mamma.

I was obliged to leave it to time, and hoped to make myself so pleasant that what I could not change in me might be at least tolerated, if it were not approved. It seemed an easy task! I was such a manifest subject of joy, to father and mother, and even Ransom too. A newly discovered land, full of gold, is not more delightfully explored by its finders, than I was watched, scrutinised, commented on, by my family.

That first day, of course, they could not let me out of their sight. It was nothing but talk, all day long. In the evening however our last evening's guests reappeared. The conversation this time did not get upon American politics, so everybody showed to better advantage; I suppose, myself included. We had music; and the gentlemen were greatly delighted with my voice and my singing. Mamma and papa took it very coolly until we were left alone again; then my mother came up and kissed me.

"You have done your duty, Daisy, in improving your voice," she said. "You are a Daisy I am perfectly satisfied with. If you can sing as well in public as you have done to-night in private, papa will be proud of you."

"In public, mamma?" I said.

"Yes. That does not frighten you. Nothing does frighten you."

"No, mamma, but - what do you mean by 'in public'?"

"Not on the stage," said mamma.

"But mamma, - papa," - I said, anxiously, "this is what I want you to understand. I will do anything in the world you wish me to do; only, I am - I must be, - you know, - a servant of Christ."

"I said nothing against that," my mother replied. But my father, clasping me in his arms, whispered, -

"We will be servants together, Daisy."

That word sent me to bed with a whole heartful of thankfulness. I could bear anything now, if his words meant what I hoped they did. And I should have security, too, against any too great trial of my affection and duty to him and to mamma.

An expedition had been arranged for the next day; in which my brother and his friends were to take me upon the lake. Mamma and papa would not go. It was a day, in one sort, of such pleasure as I had never known till then. The beautiful water, the magnificent sh.o.r.es of the lake, the wonderful lights on the mountains, almost took me out of this world; to which they seemed scarcely to belong. I cannot tell what a pang in the midst of this pleasure the thought of Mr. Thorold brought with it. The life I was living now was so very far from his life, and so unlike; my part of the world was now so very distant from his, - there was such an abyss between; - and yet the Swiss hills were so glorious, and I was enjoying them. I began to wonder, as we were sailing towards home in the end of the day, what work I had to do in this new and strange place; why was I here? Perhaps, to learn patience, and have faith grow strong by trial, while all my life hopes waited upon a will that I did not know and must trust. Perhaps, to stand up for Christian truth and simplicity in the face of much opposition.

Perhaps, to suffer, and learn to bear suffering.

"You are fatigued, Miss Randolph?" said the soft voice of De Saussure.

"Or beauty of scenery, so much beauty, makes you melancholy,"

said Mr. Marshall. "It always makes me so, if I let myself think of it."

"Why should it make any one melancholy?" I asked. "I think beauty has the contrary effect."

"A little beauty. But very great and wonderful loveliness - I don't know why, it always moves me so. It is something too far beyond me; it is unlike me; it seems to belong to another stage of being, while I am held fast in this. It mocks me, - somehow."

"It does not do so with me," I said.

"Ah, it is your world!" De Saussure said, laughing. "It could not do so with you very well."