The search went on, through other books and portfolios.  There was good store of them in Mr. Randolph’s library, and Daisy and Preston were very busy the whole morning till luncheon time.  After Daisy’s dinner, however, her mind took up its former subject of interest.  She went to Joanna, and was furnished with a nice little sponge cake and a basket of sickle pears for Molly Skelton.  Daisy forgot all about tableaux.  This was something better.  She ordered the pony chaise and got ready for driving.

“Hollo, Daisy!” said Preston as she came out upon the piazza;—­“what now?”

“I am going out.”

“With me.”

“No, I have business, Preston.”

“So have I; a business that cannot wait, either.  We must go and drum up our people for the tableaux, Daisy.  We haven’t much time to prepare, and lots of things to do.”

“What?”

“First, arrange about the parts everybody is to take; and then the dresses, and then practising.”

“Practising what, Preston?”

“Why, the pictures!  We cannot do them at a dash, all right; we must drill, until every one knows exactly how to stand and how to look, and can do it well.”

“And must the people come here to practise?”

“Of course.  Where the pictures and the dresses are, you know.  Aunt Felicia is to give us her sewing woman for as much time as we want her; and Mrs. Sandford must be here to see about all that; and we must know immediately whom we can have, and get them to come.  We must go this afternoon, Daisy.”

“Must I?”

“Certainly.  You know—­or you would know if you were not a Puritan, little Daisy, that I cannot do the business alone.  You are Miss Randolph.”

“Did the Puritans not know much?” inquired Daisy.

“Nothing—­about the ways of the world.”

Daisy looked at the pony chaise, at the blue hills, at her basket of pears; and yielding to what seemed necessity, gave up Molly for that day.  She went with Preston, he on horseback, she in her pony chaise, and a very long afternoon’s work they made of it.  And they did not get through the work, either.  But by dint of hearing the thing talked over, and seeing the great interest excited among the young folks, Daisy’s mind grew pretty full of the pictures before the day was ended.  It was so incomprehensible, how Theresa Stanfield could ever bring her merry, arch face into the grave proud endurance of the deposed French queen; it was so puzzling to imagine Hamilton Rush, a fine, good-humoured fellow, something older than Preston, transformed into the grand and awful figure of Ahasuerus; and Nora was so eager to know what part she could take; and Mrs. Sandford entered into the scheme with such utter good nature and evident competence to manage it.  Ella Stanfield’s eyes grew very wide open; and Mrs. Fish was full of curiosity, and the Linwoods were tumultuous.

“We shall have to tame those fellows down,” Preston remarked as he and Daisy rode away from this last place,—­“or they will upset everything.  Why cannot people teach people to take things quietly!”