“Is it?” said Daisy; “and what is a lotus, Capt.  Drummond?”

“If you will put me in mind to-morrow, privately, I will tell you about it,” said he.

“Let me look at that, Capt.  Drummond,” said Mrs. Gary.—­“Why, here’s a duck’s head at the end of the handle.  What a dear old thing!  Who is this Mr. Dinwiddie, pray?”

“The duck’s bill makes the spoon, aunt Gary,” said Daisy.

“If you asked me what he is, I have told you,” said Mrs. Randolph.

“He is a young man, of good family I believe, spending the summer with a neighbour of ours who is his relation,” Mr. Randolph answered.

“What is he a fanatic about?”

This question did not get an immediate answer; the conversation diverged, and it was lost.  Daisy’s spoon made the round of the company.  It was greatly admired, both from its oddness and from the beauty of its carving.

“Daisy, I will buy this spoon of you,” said her aunt.

Daisy thought not; but she said, “With what, aunt Gary?”

“With anything you please.  Do you set a high value on it?  What is it worth?”

Daisy hesitated; and then she said, “I think it is worth my regard, aunt
Gary!”

She could not guess why there was a general little laugh round the table at this speech.

“Daisy, you are an original,” said Mrs. Gary.  “May I ask, why this piece of old Egypt deserves your regard?”

“I think anything does, aunt Gary, that is a gift,” Daisy said, a little shyly.

“If your first speech sounded forty years old, your second does not,” said the lady.

“Arcadian again, both of them,” Mr. Randolph remarked.

“You always take Daisy’s part,” said the lady briskly.  But Mr. Randolph let the assertion drop.

“Mamma,” said Daisy, “what is an original?”

“Something your aunt says you are.  Do you like some of this biscuit, Daisy?”

“If you please, mamma.  And mamma, what do you mean by a fanatic?”

“Something that I will not have you,” said her mother, with knitting brow again.

Daisy slowly eat her biscuit-glace and wondered.  Wondered what it could be that Mr. Dinwiddie was and that her mother was determined she should not be.

Mr. Dinwiddie was a friend of poor people—­was that what her mother meant?  He was a devoted, unflinching servant of Christ;—­“so will I be,” said Daisy to herself; “so I am now; for I have given the Lord Jesus all I have got, and I don’t want to take anything back.  Is that what mamma calls being a fanatic?”—­Daisy’s meditations were broken off; for a general stir round the table made her look up.