“What have you got in that thing, Daisy? sand?”

“O no, mamma—­it’s something—­it’s prepared clay, I believe.”

“Prepared!” said Mrs. Randolph.  “Prepared for something besides my library.  You are hanging over it all day, Daisy—­I do not believe it is good for you.”

“O mamma, it is!”

“I think I shall try whether it is not good for you to be without it.”

“O no, mamma.”  Daisy looked in dismay.  “Do ask Dr. Sandford if he thinks it is not good for me.”

“There he is, then,” said Mrs. Randolph, “Doctor, I wish you would see whether Daisy is occupying herself, in your judgment, well, when she is hanging over that thing half the day.”

Dr. Sandford came up.  Daisy was not afraid of his decision, for she knew he was on her side.  Mrs. Randolph on the other hand did not wish, to dispute it, for she was, like most other people, on the doctor’s side.  He came up and looked at the tray.

“What is this?”

“The map of England, sir.”

“Pray what are you doing with it?”

“Making it, sir, and studying English history.”

“What are these pins? armies? or warriors? they are in confusion enough.”

“O there is no confusion,” said Daisy.  “They are castles and towns.”

“For instance?—­”

“This is Dover Castle,” said Daisy, touching a red-headed pin; “and this is Caernarvon, and Conway; and these black ones are towns.  There is London—­and Liverpool—­and York—­and Oxford—­don’t you see?”

“I see, but it would take a witch to remember.  What are you doing?”

“Studying English history, sir; and as fast as we come to a great town or castle we mark it.  These bits of paper shew where the great battle-fields are.”

“Original!” said the doctor.

“No sir, it is not,” said Daisy.  “Captain Drummond taught it to me.”

“What, the history?”

“No; but this way of playing.”

Preston was laughing and trying to keep quiet.  Nothing could be graver than the doctor.

“Is it interesting, this way of playing?”

“Very!” said Daisy, with a good deal of eagerness, more than she wished to shew.

“I wish you would forbid it, Dr. Sandford,” said Daisy’s mother.  “I do not believe in such a method of study, nor wish Daisy to be engrossed with any study at all.  She is not fit for it.”

“Whereabouts are you?” said the doctor to Daisy.

“We are just getting through the wars of the Roses.”

“Ah!  I never can remember how those wars began—­can you?”

“They began when the Duke of York tried to get the crown of Henry the Sixth.  But I think he was wrong—­don’t you?”

“Somebody is always wrong in those affairs,” said the doctor.  “You are getting through the wars of the Roses.  What do you find was the end of them?”

“When the Earl of Richmond came.  We have just finished the battle of Bosworth Field.  Then he married Elizabeth of York, and so they wore the two roses together.”