“Oh!  So many of them?”

“So many, that the rocks are sometimes darkened by their fossil remains, and in some places those remains form beds of coal several feet thick.”

“And are there a great many remains of the trilobites?”

“There are whole rocks, Daisy, that are formed almost entirely of trilobites.”

“Sea weeds and trilobites—­what a strange time!” said Daisy.  “Was that all that was living?”

“No; there were other sea creatures of the lower kind, and at last fishes.  But when the fishes became very numerous, the trilobites died out and passed away.”

That old time had a wonderful charm for Daisy; it was, as she thought, better than a fairy tale.  The doctor at last let her into the secret that he had a trilobite too; and the next time he came he brought it with him.  He was good enough to leave it with Daisy a whole day; and Daisy’s meditations over it and her own together were numberless and profound.

The next transition was somewhat sudden; to a wasp or two that had come foraging on Daisy’s window-sill.  But Dr. Sandford was at home there; and so explained the wasp’s work and manner of life, with his structure and fitness for what he had to do, that Daisy was in utter delight; though her eyes sometimes opened upon Dr. Sandford with a grave wistful wonder in them, that he should know all this so well and yet never acknowledge the hand that had given the wasp the tools and instinct for his work, one so exactly a match for the other.  But Dr. Sandford never did.  He used to notice those grave looks of Daisy, and hold private speculation with himself what they might mean; private amused speculation; but I think he must have liked his little patient as well as been amused at her, or he would hardly have kept up as he did this personal ministering to her pleasure, which was one of the great entertainments of Daisy’s life at this period.  In truth only to see Dr. Sandford was an entertainment to Daisy.  She watched even the wave of his long locks of hair.  He was a fascination to her.

“Are you in a hurry to get home?” he would ask her every now and then.  Daisy always said, “No sir; not till you think it is time;” and Dr. Sandford never thought it was time.  No matter what other people said, and they said a good deal; he ordered it his own way; and Daisy was almost ready to walk when he gave permission for her to be taken home in the carriage.  However, the permission was given at last.

“To-morrow night I shall not be here, Juanita,” Daisy remarked as she was taking her supper.

“No, Miss Daisy.”

“You will be very quiet when I am gone.”

It had not been a bustling house, all those weeks!  But the black woman only answered,

“My love will come to see Juanita sometimes?”

“O yes.  I shall come very often, Juanita—­if I can.  You know when I am out with my pony, I can come very often,—­I hope.”