Daisy knew who Juanita was.  She had been brought from the West Indies by the mother of one of the gentlemen who lived in the neighbourhood; and upon the death of her mistress had been established in a little house of her own.  Daisy judged that she would be quite safe in going there for water.

“If I turn into that road, can I go home round that way, Sam?”

“You can, Miss Daisy; but it’s a ways longer.”

“I like that,” said Daisy.

She turned up the road that led behind the trees, and presently saw Juanita’s cottage.  A little grey stone house, low-roofed, standing at the very edge of a piece of woodland, and some little distance back from the road.  Daisy saw the old woman sitting on her doorstep.  A grassy slope stretched down from the house to the road.  The sun shone up against the grey cottage.

“You take care of Loupe, Sam, and I’ll go in,” said Daisy.  A plan which probably disappointed Sam, but Daisy did not know that.  She went through a little wicket and up the path.

Juanita did not look like the blacks she had been accustomed to see. Black she was not, but of a fine olive dark skin; and though certainly old, she was still straight and tall and very fine in her appearance and bearing.  Daisy could see this but partially while Juanita was sitting at her door; she was more struck by the very grave look her face wore just then.  It was not turned towards her little visiter, and Daisy got the impression that she must be feeling unhappy.

Juanita rose however with great willingness to get the water, and asked Daisy into her house.  Daisy dared not, after her father’s prohibition, go in, and she stood at the door till the water was brought.  Then with a strong feeling of kindness towards the lonely and perhaps sorrowful old woman, and remembering to “do good as she had opportunity,” Daisy suddenly offered her the beautiful rose-branch.

“Does the lady think I want pay for a glass of water?” said the woman, with a smile that was extremely winning.

“No,” said Daisy,—­“but I thought, perhaps, you liked flowers.”

“There’s another sort of flowers that the Lord likes,”—­said the woman looking at her; “they be his little children.”

Daisy’s heart was tender, and there was something in Juanita’s face that won her confidence.  Instead of turning away, she folded her hands unconsciously and said, more wistfully than she knew, “I want to be one!”

“Does my little lady know the Lord Jesus?” said the woman, with a bright light coming into her eye.

Daisy’s heart was sore as well as tender; the question touched two things,—­the joy that she did know him, and the trouble that following him had cost her; she burst into tears.  Then turning away and with a great effort throwing off the tears, she went back to the chaise.  There stood Sam with the pony’s foot in his hand.

“Miss Daisy, this fellow has kicked one of his shoes half off; he can’t go home so; it’s hanging.  Could Miss Daisy stop a little while at Mrs. Benoit’s, I could take the pony to the blacksmith’s—­it ain’t but a very little ways off—­and get it put on, in a few minutes.”