“I thought everything at the sun must be on fire,” said Daisy looking meditatively at the doctor.

“You see you were mistaken.  It has only a covering of clouds of fire—­so to speak.”

“But it must be very hot there.”

“It is pretty hot here,” said the doctor shrugging his shoulders,—­“ninety five millions of miles away; so I do not see that we can avoid your conclusion.”

“How much is ninety five millions?”

“I am sure I don’t know,” said Dr. Sandford gravely.  “After I have gone as far as a million or so, I get tired.”

“But I do not know much about arithmetic,” said Daisy humbly.  “Mamma has not wanted me to study.  I don’t know how much one million is.”

“Arithmetic does not help one on a journey, Miss Daisy,” said the doctor pleasantly.  “Counting the miles did not comfort me to-day.  But I can tell you this.  If you and I were to set off on a railway train, straight for the sun, and go at the rate of thirty-two miles an hour,—­you know that is pretty fast travelling?”

“How fast do we go on the cars from here to New York?”

“Thirty miles an hour.”

“Now I know,” said Daisy.

“If we were to set off and go straight to the sun at that rate of speed, keeping it up night and day, it would take us—­how long do you guess?  It would take us three hundred years and more; nearly three hundred and fifty years, to get there.”

“I cannot imagine travelling so long,” said Daisy gravely.  At which Dr. Sandford laughed; the first time Daisy had ever heard him do such a thing.  It was a low, mellow laugh now; and she rather enjoyed it.

“I should like to know what a million is,” she observed.

“Ten hundred thousand.”

“And how many million miles did you say the sun is?”

“Ninety-five millions of miles away.”

Daisy lay thinking about it.

“Can you imagine travelling faster?  And then we need not be so long on the journey,” said Dr. Sandford.  “If we were to go as fast as a cannon ball, it would take us about seven years—­not quite so much—­to get to the sun.”

“How fast does a cannon ball go?”

“Fifty times as fast as a railway train.”

“I cannot imagine that either, Dr. Sandford.”

“Give it up, Daisy,” said the doctor, rising and beginning to put himself in order for travelling.

“Are you going?” said Daisy.

“Not till you have done with me!”

“Dr. Sandford, have you told me all there is to tell about the sun?”

“No.”

“Would it take too long this evening?”

“Considering that the sun will not stay to be talked about, Daisy,” said the doctor glancing out of the window, “I should say it would.”

“Then I will ask only one thing more.  Dr. Sandford, how can you tell so exactly how long it would take to go to the sun? how do you know?”