She looked up meekly and answered, “Yes, Dr. Sandford.”  So meekly that the doctor’s eye took special note of her.

“Have you been to Crum Elbow to-day?”

“Yes, sir.  I got all the things.”

“All of them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What reward shall I give you?”

She had been speaking with a sad meekness, a sober self restraint, unlike her years.  If Dr. Sandford meant to break it up, which I think he did, he had partial success.  Daisy looked up and smiled at him.  But yet it was a meek smile, and sad even in its composed denial of any notion of reward.  Not satisfactory to the doctor.

“I always repay anybody that does me any service,” he went on.

“Ought one always to do that?” said Daisy.

“What is your judgment?”

“I think everybody could not.”

“Why not?”

“Some people have nothing to pay with,—­for things that are done for them.”

“I do not believe that.”

“Some people, Dr. Sandford?”

“Whom do you know in that condition—­for instance?”

“Why, I—­for instance.”

“You!  What cannot you pay for?”

“A great many things,” said Daisy slowly.  “Hardly any thing.  I am only a child.”

“How is it about Molly Skelton?  Does she pay you for the various attentions she receives from you?”

“Pay me, Dr. Sandford!  I do not want pay.”

“You are very unlike me, then,” said the doctor; “that is all I have to say.”

“Why Dr. Sandford, what pay could she give me?”

“Don’t you get any, then?”

“Why no, sir,” said Daisy, eagerly answering the doctor’s blue eye.  “Except—­yes, of course, I get a sort of pay; but Molly does not—­yes she does give it to me; but I mean, she does not mean to pay me.”

The doctor smiled, one of those rare pleasant smiles, that shewed his white teeth in a way that Daisy liked; it was only a glimmer.

“What sort of pay is that?—­which she gives, and does not mean to give, and you take and do not ask for?”

“O!—­that sort of pay!” said Daisy.  “Is it that sort you mean, Dr. Sandford?”

“That is one sort.”

“But I mean, is it the sort that you always give, you say?”

“Always, when people deserve it.  And then, do you not think it is natural to wish to give them, if you can, some other sort of pay?”

“I think it is,” said Daisy sedately.

“I am glad you do not disapprove of it.”

“But I do not think people want that other kind of pay.  Dr. Sandford.”

“Perhaps not.  I suppose it is a selfish gratification of oneself to give it.”

Daisy looked so earnestly and so curiously at him, as if to see what all this was about, that the doctor must have had good command of his lips not to smile again.