“What was that for, Daisy?” said Mrs. Gary.  “You would have made an excellent Esther.”

“What was that for, Daisy?” said Mrs. Randolph.  “Did you not like to be Esther?”

“Yes, mamma—­I liked it at one time.”

“And why not at another time?”

“I found out that somebody else would like it too, mamma; and I thought——­”

Mrs. Randolph broke out with a contemptuous expression of displeasure.

“You thought you would put yourself in a corner!  You were not manager, Daisy; and you must remember something is due to the one that is.  You have no right to please yourself.”

“Come here, Daisy,” said her father, “and bid me good night.  I dare say you were trying to please somebody else.  Tell mamma she must remember the old fable, and excuse you.”

“What fable, Mr. Randolph?” the lady inquired, as Daisy left the room.

“The one in which the old Grecian told the difficulty of pleasing more people than one or two at once.”

“Daisy is ruined!” said Mrs. Randolph.

“I do not see how it appears.”

“She has not entered into this thing at all as we hoped she would—­not at all as a child should.”

“She looked a hundred years old, in the Game of Life,” said Mrs. Gary.  “I never saw such a representation in my life.  You would have said she was a real guardian angel of somebody, who was playing his game not to please her.”

“I am glad it is over!” said Mrs. Randolph.  “I am tired of it all.”  And she walked off.  So did Mr. Randolph, but as he went he was thinking of Daisy’s voice and her words—­“There is joy among the angels of heaven whenever anybody grows good.”

CHAPTER XIX.

It was growing late in the fall now.  Mrs. Randolph began to talk of moving to the city for the winter.  Mr. Randolph more than half hinted that he would like as well to stay where he was.  But his wife said that for Daisy’s sake they must quit Melbourne, and try what new scenes, and lessons, and dancing school would do for her.  “Not improve the colour in her cheeks, I am afraid,” said Mr. Randolph; but however he did not oppose, and Mrs. Randolph made her arrangements.

It was yet but a day or two after the tableaux, when something happened to disturb her plans.  Mr. Randolph was out riding with her, one fine October morning, when his horse became unruly in consequence of a stone hitting him; a chance stone thrown from a careless hand.  The animal was restive, took the stone very much in dudgeon, ran, and carrying his rider under a tree, Mr. Randolph’s forehead was struck by a low-lying limb and he was thrown off.  The blow was severe; he was stunned; and had not yet recovered his senses when they brought him back to Melbourne.  Mrs. Randolph was in a state almost as much beyond self-management.  Daisy was out of the house.  Mrs. Gary had left Melbourne; and till the doctor arrived Mrs. Randolph was nearly distracted.