“Do you know,” he said, “that you must go home?  The sun is almost down.”

So home they went—­Mr. Dinwiddie and Nora taking care of Daisy quite to the house.  But it was long after sundown then.

“What has kept you?” her mother asked, as Daisy came in to the tea-table.

“I didn’t know how late it was, mamma.”

“Where have you been?”

“I was picking wintergreens with Nora Dinwiddie.”

“I hope you brought me some,” said Mr. Randolph.

“O I did, papa; only I have not put them in order yet.”

“And where did you and Nora part?”

“Here, at the door, mamma.”

“Was she alone?”

“No, ma’am—­Mr. Dinwiddie found us in the wood, and he took her home, and he brought me home first.”

Daisy was somewhat of a diplomatist.  Perhaps a little natural reserve of character might have been the beginning of it, but the habit had certainly grown from Daisy’s experience of her mother’s somewhat capricious and erratic views of her movements.  She could not but find out that things which to her father’s sense were quite harmless and unobjectionable, were invested with an unknown and unexpected character of danger or disagreeableness in the eyes of her mother; neither could Daisy get hold of any chain of reasoning by which she might know beforehand what would meet her mother’s favour and what would not.  The unconscious conclusion was, that reason had little to do with it; and the consequence, that without being untrue, Daisy had learned to be very uncommunicative about her thoughts, plans, or wishes.  To her mother, that is; she was more free with her father, though the habit, once a habit, asserted itself everywhere.  Perhaps, too, among causes, the example of her mother’s own elegant manner of shewing truth only as one shews a fine picture,—­in the best light,—­might have had its effect.  Daisy’s diplomacy served her little on the present occasion.

“Daisy!” said her mother, “look at me.”  Daisy fixed her eves on the pleasant, handsome, mild face.  “You are not to go anywhere in future where Mr. Dinwiddie is.  Do you understand?”

“If he finds you lost out at night, though,” said Mr. Randolph a little humorously, “he may bring you home.”

Daisy wondered and obeyed, mentally, in silence; making no answer to either speaker.  It was not her habit either to shew her dismay on such occasions, and she shewed none.  But when she went up an hour later to be undressed for bed, instead of letting the business go on, Daisy took a Bible and sat down by the light and pored over a page that she had found.

The woman waiting on her, a sad-faced mulatto, middle-aged and respectable looking, went patiently round the room, doing or seeming to do some trifles of business, then stood still and looked at the child, who was intent on her book.

“Come, Miss Daisy,” said she at last, “wouldn’t you like to be undressed?”