“I was puffed up,” said Daisy, “because I was to wear those beautiful things.  I will let Nora wear them.  I was seeking my own, all the time, Juanita.  I didn’t know it.”

“See, Miss Daisy—­’That women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array.’”

“Is there any harm in those pretty things, Juanita?  They are so pretty!”

“I don’t know, Miss Daisy; the Lord say he not pleased with them; and the Lord knows.”

“I suppose,” said Daisy——­but what Daisy supposed was never told.  It was lost in thought.

“My love see here what please the Lord—­’the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.’”

Daisy lifted her little face and kissed the fine olive cheek of her friend.

“I know now, Juanita,” she said with her accustomed placidness.  “I didn’t know what was the matter with me.  I shall have to play in the pictures—­I cannot help it now—­but I will let Nora be Queen Esther.”

It was quite late by this time and Daisy after a little more talk went home; a talk which filled the child’s heart with comfort.  Daisy went home quite herself again, and looked as happy and busy as a bee when she got there.

“Daisy! what late doings!” exclaimed her father.  “Out all the afternoon and practising all the morning—­Where have you been?”

“I have been visiting, papa.”

“Pray whom?”

“Molly, papa—­and Juanita,” Daisy said, not very willingly, for Mrs. Randolph was within hearing.

“A happy selection!” said she.  “Go and get ready for dinner, Daisy.”

“Have you been all the afternoon at those two places, Daisy?” asked her father, within whose arms she stood.

“Yes, papa.”

He let her go; and a significant look passed between him and his wife.

“A little too much of a good thing,” said Mr. Randolph.

“It will be too much, soon,” the lady answered.

Nevertheless Daisy for the present was safe, thanks to her friend Dr. Sandford; and she passed on up stairs with a spirit as light as a bird.  And after she was dressed, till it was time for her to go in to the dinner-table, all that while a little figure was kneeling at the open window and a little round head was bowed upon the sill.  And after that, there was no cloud upon Daisy’s face at all.

In the drawing-room, when they were taking tea, Daisy carried her cup of milk and cake to a chair close by Preston.

“Well, Daisy, what now?”

“I want to talk to you about the pictures, Preston.”

“We did finely to-day, Daisy!  If only I could get the cramp out of Frederica’s fingers.”

“Cramp!” said Daisy.

“Yes.  She picks up that handkerchief of hers as if her hand was a bird’s claw.  I can’t get a blue jay or a canary out of my head when I see her.  Did you ever see a bird scratch its eye with its claw, Daisy?”