Not a word did Daisy say; only little alternate throbs of joy and fear, as her father or her mother spoke, passed through her heart.  Mrs. Randolph gave it up; and there was another hour of quiet, very sweet to Daisy.  Then lights were brought, and again Mrs. Randolph proposed, to have the tea served; but again Mr. Randolph negatived her proposal; and things remained as they were.  At last Mrs. Randolph was summoned to preside at the tea-table down stairs; for even now there were one or two guests at Melbourne.  Then there was a stir in the room up stairs.  The tray came with Mr. Randolph’s supper; and Daisy had the delight of sharing it and of being his attendant in chief.  He let her do what she would; and without being unquiet, Daisy and her father enjoyed themselves over that entertainment.

“Now I think I could bear a little reading,” said Mr. Randolph, as he laid his head back on his couch.

“What, papa?” said Daisy, a sudden hope starting into some dark corner of her heart, almost without her knowing it.

“What?—­what you please.”

“Shall I read what, I like, papa?”

“Yes.  If I do not like it, I will tell you.”

Daisy ran away and flew through the rooms to her own, and there hastily sought her Bible.  She could not wait to get another; she took her own and ran back softly with it.  Her father’s languid eye watched the little white figure coming towards him, book in hand; the gentle eager step, the slight flush on the cheek; till she took her seat beside him.

“What have you got there, Daisy?” he asked.

“Papa—­my Bible.”

“Well—­what are you going to read?”

“I don’t know, papa—­” said Daisy doubtfully.  What would come next?

“Do you remember your picture, the ’Game of Life’?”

“Yes, papa.”

“Do you remember your talk about good and evil spirits?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Find me the grounds of your philosophy.”

Daisy thought what that might mean, and guessed at it.  She turned to the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, a favourite chapter, and read the parable of the sheep and the goats.  The servant had withdrawn; Daisy and her father were alone.  There was a moment’s pause when she had done.

“Is that all?” said Mr. Randolph.

“That is all of this, papa.”

“There is nothing there about the rejoicings of the good spirits,”—­said Mr. Randolph.

Daisy’s fingers trembled, she hardly knew why, as she turned over the leaves to find the place.  Her father watched her.

“Are you sure it is there, Daisy?”

“O yes, papa—­it is in the story of the man with a hundred sheep—­I will find it directly.”

So she did, and read the parable in the fifteenth chapter of Luke.  Her father listened with shut eyes, while the child’s voice gave the words in a sort of sweet clear gravity.