The words were said in a tone so low they were hardly more than a suggestion.  Daisy gave them no heed.  The woman stood with dressing gown on her arm and a look of habitual endurance upon her face.  It was a singular face, so set in its lines of enforced patience, so unbending.  The black eyes were bright enough, but without the help of the least play of those fixed lines, they expressed nothing.  A little sigh came from the lips at last, which also was plainly at home there.

“Miss Daisy, it’s gettin’ very late.”

“June, did you ever read the parable of the tares?”

“The what, Miss Daisy?”

“The parable about the wheat and the tares in the Bible—­in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew?”

“Yes, ma’am,”—­came somewhat dry and unwillingly from June’s lips, and she moved the dressing-gown on her arm significantly.

“Do you remember it?”

“Yes, ma’am,—­I suppose I do, Miss Daisy—­”

“June, when do you think it will be?”

“When will what, Miss Daisy?”

“When the ’Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.’  It says, ’in the end of this world’—­did you know this world would come to an end, June?”

“Yes, Miss Daisy—­”

“When will it be, June?”

“I don’t know, Miss Daisy.”

“There won’t be anybody alive that is alive now, will there?”

Again unwillingly the answer came:  “Yes, ma’am.  Miss Daisy, hadn’t you better—­”

“How do you know, June?”

“I have heard so—­it’s in the Bible—­it will be when the Lord comes.”

“Do you like to think of it, June?”

The child’s searching eyes were upon her.  The woman half laughed, half answered, and turning aside, broke down and burst into tears.

“What’s the matter, June?” said Daisy, coming nearer and speaking awedly; for it was startling to see that stony face give way to anything but its habitual formal smile.  But the woman recovered herself almost immediately, and answered as usual:  “It’s nothing, Miss Daisy.”  She always spoke as if everything about her was “nothing” to everybody else.

“But, June,” said Daisy tenderly, “why do you feel bad about it?”

“I shouldn’t, I s’pose,” said the woman desperately, answering because she was obliged to answer; “I hain’t no right to feel so—­if I felt ready.”

“How can one be ready, June? that is what I want to know.  Aren’t you ready?”

“Do, don’t, Miss Daisy!—­the Lord have mercy upon us!” said June under her breath, wrought up to great excitement, and unable to bear the look of the child’s soft grey eyes.  “Why don’t ye ask your papa about them things? he can tell ye.”