“Which way are you going, sir?”

“By myself—­to see if I can get a shot at something.”

Preston did not look delighted, Daisy saw, though he accepted the charge the doctor gave him.  The doctor himself strode off with his gun, disappearing in the woods at the nearest point.  Daisy was left with her two bearers and her three attendants.

“Well boys, we may as well get along,” said Ransom discontentedly.  “There is no occasion that we should keep poking on behind this concern.”

They passed it and took the lead.  Preston as he passed asked Daisy how it went, and if she were comfortable.  It went very nicely, and she was very comfortable; and receiving this assurance Preston sprang forward to regain Alexander Fish’s company, with whom he was holding an animated discourse on the making and using of artificial flies.  The three boys trudged along in advance; the motions of their busy heads, and of their active feet, telling that there was no lack of interest or excitement there.  The chair followed steadily with its little burden.  It went nicely; she was very comfortable; it was a new and most pleasant mode of getting over the ground; and yet—­there was something at work in Daisy’s heart that was not pleasure.  She was sadly disappointed.  She was left alone.  It had tried her a good deal that Nora and Ella should have ran after the larger party with so cavalier an abandonment of her, when they knew her chair must go another road.  Then she was very sorry that the doctor had seen good to forsake her; and felt that from the thoughtfulness or unselfishness of boys she had little to hope for.  Look at them! there they went before her, putting more and more distance between them and the chair every minute.  Perhaps they would entirely forget their little convoy and be out of sight in a trifle more time.  And in all that big party of pleasure, everybody engaged with somebody else, she was left with no one to speak to her, and no company at all but that of Logan and Sam.  Daisy two or three times put up her hand stealthily to her face to get rid of a tear that had found its way there.  Daisy thought at first that she would not have done so to her friends as they had done to her; but then presently she reflected what reason she had to know better and to do better, that they had not; and instead of anything like resentment, a very gentle and tender feeling of pity and kindness arose in Daisy’s mind toward them.  Her hurt sense of unfriendliness quite soothed itself away; and now Daisy began to enjoy herself and the day and the party of pleasure.  Her share of it, at least.  Her chair was under shadow of the tall woods now.  It is true, it was very hot there.  No air seemed moving.  The chair-bearers often raised an arm to their brows to wipe away the heated moisture that stood there and ran down their faces.  But Daisy had no exertion to make; and instead of that, her own motion seemed to give a little life to the lifeless air.  Then