“So do I—­if I might shoot them again.”

“It’s cruel, Preston!”

“Nonsense, Daisy.  Don’t you be too tender.  Birds were made to kill.  What are they good for?”

With a wit that served her instead of experience, Daisy was silent, looking with unspoken abhorrence at the wicked muzzle of the fowling-piece.

“Did you bring me ‘Sandford and Merton,’ Preston?” she said presently.

“‘Sandford and Merton’!  My dear Daisy, I have been going all over the world, you know—­this part of it—­and I was too far from Melbourne to go round that way for your book; if I had, it would have been too late to get here.  You see the sun’s pretty well down.”

Daisy said no more; but it was out of her power not to look disappointed.  She had so counted upon her book; and she was so weary of lying still and doing nothing.  She wanted very much to read about the house that Harry and Tommy built; it would have been a great refreshment.

“Cheer up, Daisy,” said Preston; “I’ll bring you books to-morrow—­and read to you too, if you like it.  What shall I bring?”

“O Preston, I want to know about trilobites!”

“Daisy, you might as well want to know about the centre of the earth!  That’s where they belong.”

“I should like to know about the centre of the earth,” said Daisy.  “Is there anything there?”

“Anything at the centre of the earth?  I suppose so.”

“But I mean, anything but earth,” said Daisy.

Preston burst out laughing.  “O Daisy, Daisy!—­Hadn’t you better learn about what is on the outside of the earth, before we dig down so deep into it?”

“Well, Preston, my trilobite was on the outside.”

“Daisy, it wouldn’t interest you,” said Preston seriously; “you would have to go deep into something else besides the earth—­so deep that you would get tired.  Let the trilobite alone, and let’s have Grimm’s Tales to-morrow—­shall we? or what will you have?”

Daisy was patiently silent a minute; and then in came Dr. Sandford.  In his presence Preston was mute; attending to the doctor’s manipulations as gravely as the doctor himself performed them.  In the midst of the general stillness, Dr. Sandford asked,

“Who was speaking about trilobites as I came up?”

“Preston was speaking,” said Daisy, as nobody else seemed ready to answer.

“What about them?”

“He thinks they would not interest me,” said Daisy.

“What do you know about trilobites?” said Dr. Sandford, now raising his blue eyes for a good look into the child’s face.  He saw it looked weary.

“I have got a beautiful one.  Juanita, will you bring it here, please?”

The doctor took it up and handled it with an eye that said, Daisy knew, that it was a fine specimen.  The way he handled it gratified her.

“So this is one of your playthings, is it, Daisy?”