“Harmoniously?” said the doctor.

“I don’t know, sir.  I do not know anything about Henry the Seventh yet.”

“What was going on in the rest of the world while the Roses were at war in England?”

“O I don’t know, sir!” said Daisy, looking up with a sudden expression of humbleness.  “I do not know anything about anywhere else.”

“You do not know where the Hudson River was then.”

“I suppose it was where it is now?”

“Geographically, Daisy; but not politically, socially, or commercially.  Melbourne House was not thinking of building; and the Indians ferried their canoes over to Silver Lake, where a civilized party are going in a few days to eat chicken salad under very different auspices.”

“Were there no white people here?”

“Columbus had not discovered America, even.  He did that just about seven years after Henry the Seventh was crowned on Bosworth Field.”

“I don’t know who Columbus was,” Daisy said, with a glance so wistful and profound in its sense of ignorance, that Dr. Sandford smiled.

“You will hear about him soon,” he said, turning away to Mrs. Randolph.  That lady did not look by any means well pleased.  The doctor stood before her looking down, with the sort of frank, calm bearing that characterized him.

“Are you not, in part at least, a Southerner?” was the lady’s first question.

“I am sorry I must lose so much of your good opinion as to confess myself a Yankee,” said the doctor steadily.

“Are you going to give your sanction to Daisy’s plunging herself into study, and books, and all that sort of thing, Dr. Sandford?”

“Not beyond my depth to reach her.”

“I do not think it is good for her.  She is very fond of it, and she does a great deal too much of it when she begins; and she wants strengthening first, in my opinion.  You have said enough now to make her crazy after the history of the whole world.”

“Mrs. Randolph, I must remind you that though, you can hinder a tree from growing, in a particular place, you cannot a fungus; if the conditions be favourable.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think this may be a good alterative.”

The lady looked a little hard at the doctor.

“There is one book I wish you could hinder her from reading,” she said, lowering her tone.

“What is that, madam?”

“She is just the child not to bear it; and she is injured by poring over the Bible.”

“Put the Bibles out of her way,” suggested the doctor.

“I have, as much as I can; but it is not possible to do it perfectly.”

“Then I counsel you to allow her the use of this medicine,” said Dr. Sandford, glancing towards the tray, which no longer held Daisy’s attention.  For together with her mother’s lowering of voice, the one word “Bible” had come to her consciousness.  Daisy was at no loss to guess what it meant.  The low tones of the speakers gave her sufficient information.