“You don’t feel like storming the heights, this morning?”

Again, to him also, the glance of Daisy’s eye was so very sweet and so very wistful, that the captain was determined in a purpose he had half had in his mind.

“What do you say to a long expedition, Daisy?”

“I don’t feel like driving, Capt.  Drummond.”

“No, but suppose I drive,—­and we will leave Loupe at home for to-day.  I want to go as far as Schroeder’s Hill, to look after trilobites; and I do not want anybody with me but you.  Shall we go?”

“What are those things, Capt.  Drummond?”

“Trilobites?”

“Yes.  What are they?”

“Curious things, Daisy!  They are a kind of fish that are found on land.”

“Fish on land!  But then they can’t be fish, Capt.  Drummond?”

“Suppose we go and see,” said the captain; “and then if we find any, we shall know more about them than we do now.”

“But how do you catch them?”

“With my hands, I suppose.”

“With your hands, Capt.  Drummond?”

“Really I don’t know any other way,—­unless your hands will help.  Come! shall we go and try?”

Daisy slowly rose up, very mystified, but with a little light of interest and curiosity breaking on her face.  The Captain moved off on his part to get ready, well satisfied that he was doing a good thing.

It went to the Captain’s heart nevertheless, for he had a kind one, to see all the way how pale and quiet Daisy’s face was.  She asked him no more about trilobites, she did not talk about anything; the subjects the Captain started were soon let drop.  And not because she was too ill to talk, for Daisy’s eye was thoughtfully clear and steady, and the Captain had no doubt but she was busy enough in her own mind with things she did not bring out.  What sort of things? he was very curious to know.  For he had never seen Daisy’s face so exceeding sweet in its expression as he saw it now; though the cheeks were pale and worn, there was in her eye whenever it was lifted to his a light of something hidden that the Captain could not read.  It was true.  Daisy had sat stunned and dull all the morning until he came with his proposal for the drive; and with the first stir of excitement in getting ready, a returning tide of love had filled the dry places in Daisy’s heart; and it was full now of feelings that only wanted a chance to come out.  Meanwhile she sat as still as a mouse and as grave as a judge.

The hill for which they were bound was some dozen or more miles away.  It was a wild rough place.  Arrived at the foot of it, they could go no further by the road; the Captain tied his horse to a tree, and he and Daisy scrambled up the long winding ascent, thick with briars and bushes, or strewn with pieces of rock and shaded with a forest of old trees.  This was hard walking for Daisy to-day; she did not feel like struggling with any difficulties, and her