“I am not going in.”

“But you want your dinner, Miss Daisy.”

“No, I don’t, June.  I don’t want to go in.”

June looked at her a minute.  “I’ll get you your luncheon out here, Miss Daisy.  You’ll be faint for want of something to eat.  Will you have it out here?”

“You needn’t say where I am, June.”

[Illustration]

June went off, and Daisy was left alone.  Very weary and exhausted, she sat leaning her head against the stone at her side, in a sort of despairing quiet.  The little ripple of the water on the pebbly shore struck her ear; it was the first thing eye or ear had perceived to be pleasant that day.  Daisy’s thoughts went to the hand that had made the glittering river, with all its beauties and wonders; then they went to what Mr. Dinwiddie had said, that God will help his people when they are trying to do any difficult work for him; he will take care of them; he will not forsake them.  Suddenly it filled Daisy’s soul like a flood, the thought that Jesus loves his people; that she was his little child and that he loved her; and all his wisdom and power and tenderness were round her and would keep her.  Her trouble seemed to be gone, or it was like a cloud with sunlight shining all over it.  The very air was full of music, to Daisy’s feeling, not her sense.  There never was such sunlight, or such music either, as this feeling of the love of Jesus.  Daisy kneeled down by the rock and rested her forehead against it, to pray for joy.

She was there still, when June came back and stopped and looked at her, a vague expression of care sitting in her black eyes, into which now an unwonted moisture stole.  June had a basket, and as soon as Daisy sat down again, she came up and began to take things out of it.  She had brought everything for Daisy’s dinner.  There was a nice piece of beefsteak, just off the gridiron; and rice and potatoes; and a fine bowl of strawberries for dessert.  June had left nothing; there was the roll and the salt, and a tumbler and a carafe of water.  She set the other things about Daisy, on the ground and on the rock, and gave the plate of beefsteak into her hand.

“Miss Daisy, what will you do for a table?”

“It’s nicer here than a table.  How good you are, June.  I didn’t know I wanted it.”

“I know you do, Miss Daisy.”

And she went to her sewing, and sewed perseveringly, while Daisy eat her dinner.

“June, what o’clock is it?”

“It’s after one, ma’am.”

“You haven’t had your own dinner?”

June mumbled something, of which nothing could be understood except that it was a general abnegation of all desire or necessity for dinner on her own part.

“But you have not had it?” said Daisy.

“No, ma’am.  They’ve done dinner by this time.”

“June, I have eaten up all the beefsteak—­there is nothing left but some potato and rice and strawberries; but you shall have some strawberries.”