“Yes, capitally,” said Preston.  “And—­Mrs. Sandford—­wouldn’t she make a good John Alden?”

“Daisy for Priscilla!  Excellent!” said Mrs. Sandford.  “If the two could keep their gravity, which I very much doubt.”

“Daisy can keep anything,” said Preston.  “I will tutor Nora.”

“Well, I will help you as much as I can,” said the lady, “But, my boy, this business takes time!  I had no notion I had been here so long.  I must run.”

CHAPTER XIII.

As she made her escape one way, so did Daisy by another.  When Preston came back from attending Mrs. Sandford to her carriage he could find nothing of his little co-worker.  Daisy was gone.

In all haste and with a little self-reproach for having forgotten it, she had ordered her pony chaise; and then examined into the condition of her stores.  The sponge cake was somewhat dry; the sickle pears wanted looking over.  Part of them were past ripe.  Indeed so many of them, that Daisy found her basket was no longer properly full, when these were culled out.  She went to Joanna.  Miss Underwood, soon made that all right with some nice late peaches; and Daisy thought with herself that sponge cake was very good a little dry and would probably not find severe criticism at Molly’s house.  She got away without encountering her cousin, much to her satisfaction.

Molly was not in her garden.  That had happened before.  Daisy went in, looked at the flowers, and waited.  The rose tree was flourishing; the geranium was looking splendid; with nothing around either of them that in the least suited their neighbourhood.  So Daisy thought.  If all the other plants—­the ragged balsams and “creeping Charley” and the rest—­could have been rooted up, then the geranium, and the rose would have shewn well together.  However, Molly did not doubtless feel this want of suitability; to her the tall sunflower was no question a treasure and a beautiful plant.  Would Molly come out!

It seemed as if she would not.  No stir, and the closed house door looking forbidding and unhopeful.  Daisy waited, and waited, and walked up and down the bit of a path, from the gate quite to the house door; in hopes that the sound of her feet upon the walk might be heard within.  Daisy’s feet did not make much noise; but however that were, there was no stir of a sound anywhere else.  Daisy was patient; not the less the afternoon was passing away and pretty far gone already, and it was the first of October now.  The light did not last as long as it did a few months ago.  Daisy was late.  She must go soon, if she did not see Molly; and to go without seeing her was no part of Daisy’s plan.  Perhaps Molly was sick.  At any rate, the child’s footsteps paused at the door of the poor little house, and her fingers knocked.  She had never been inside of it yet, and what she saw of the outside was not in the least inviting.  The little windows, lined