“What is that for, Capt.  Drummond?” asked Daisy.

“These are the Alps—­white, as they should be, for the snow always lies on them.”

“Is it so cold there?”

“No,—­but the mountains are so high.  Their tops are always cold, but flowers grow down in the valleys.  These are very great mountains, Daisy.”

“And what are those black ones, Capt.  Drummond?”

“This range is the Pyrenees—­between France and Spain;—­they are great too, and beautiful.  And here go the Carpathians—­and here the Ural mountains,—­and these must stand for the Apennines.”

“Are they beautiful too?”

“I suppose so—­but I can’t say, never having been there.  Now what shall we do for the cities?  As they are centres of wealth, I think a three-cent piece must mark them.  Hand over, Gary; I have not thrips enough.  There is St. Petersburg—­here is Constantinople—­here is Rome—­now here is Paris.  Hallo! we’ve no England! can’t leave London out.  Give me that spoon, Daisy—­” and the Captain, as he expressed it, went to work in the trenches.  England was duly marked out, the channel filled, and a bit of silver planted for the metropolis of the world.

“Upon my word!” said Gary,—­“I never knew geography before.  I shall carry away some ideas.”

“Keep all you can get,” said the Captain.  “Now there’s Europe.”

“And here were the battles,”—­said Daisy, touching the little spot of wet sand which stood for the Crimea.

“The battles!” said Gary.  “What battles?”

“Why, where the English and French fought the Russians.”

“The battles!  Shades of all the heroes!  Why Daisy, Europe has done nothing but fight for a hundred thousand years.  There isn’t a half inch of it that hasn’t had a battle.  See, there was one,—­and there was another—­tremendous;—­and there,—­and there,—­and there,—­and there,—­and all over!  This little strip here that is getting swallowed up in the Mediterranean—­there has been blood enough shed on it to make it red from one end to the other, a foot deep.  That’s because it has had so many great men belonging to it.”

Daisy looked at Capt.  Drummond.

“It’s pretty much so, Daisy,” he said; “all over the south of Europe, at any rate.”

“Why over the south and not the north?”

“People in the north haven’t anything to fight for,” said Gary.  “Nobody wants a possession of ice and snow—­more than will cool his butter.”

“A good deal so, Daisy,” said Capt.  Drummond, taking the silent appeal of her eyes.

“Besides,” continued Gary, “great men don’t grow in the north.  Daisy, I want to know which is the battle-field you are going to die on.”

Daisy sat back from the map of Europe and looked at Gary with unqualified amazement.

“Well?” said Gary.  “I mean it.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I hear you are going to die on the field of battle—­and I want to be there that I may throw myself after you, as Douglas did after the Bruce’s locket; saying ’Go thou first, brave heart, as thou art wont, and I will follow thee!’”