“Is she old?”

“Pretty old, I fancy.  But she does not know her age herself, and nobody else knows it.”

“Has she got nice people to take care of her?”

The doctor smiled at the earnest little face.  “She has nobody.”

“No one to take care of her?” said Daisy.

“No.  She lives there alone.”

“But, Dr. Sandford, how does she do—­how does she manage?”

“In some way that would be difficult for you and me to understand, I suppose—­like the ways of the beavers and wasps.”

“I can understand those” said Daisy, “they were made to get along as they do; they have got all they want.”

Daisy was silent, musing, for a little time; then she broke out again.

“Isn’t she very miserable, Dr. Sandford?”

“She is a very crabbed old thing, so the inference is fair that she is miserable.  In fact, I do not see how she can avoid it.”

Daisy pondered perhaps this misery which she could so little imagine; however she let the subject drop as to any more words about it.  She was only what the doctor called “quaintly sober,” all the rest of the way.

“Why she looks child-like and bright enough now,” said Mrs. Sandford, to whom he made the remark.  Daisy and Nora were exchanging mutual gratulations.  The doctor looked at them.

“At the rate in which she is growing old,” said he, “she will have the soul of Methusaleh in a body of twenty years.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Mrs. Sandford.

Nora and Daisy had a great day of it.  Nothing broke the full flow of business and pleasure during all the long hours; the day was not hot to them, nor the shadows long in coming.  Behind the house there was a deep grassy dell through which a brook ran.  Over this brook in the dell a great black walnut tree cast its constant flickering shadow; flickering when the wind played in the leaves and branches, although to-day the air was still and sultry, and the leaves and the shadows were still too, and did not move.  But there was life enough in the branches of the old walnut, for a large family of grey squirrels had established themselves there.  Old and young, large and small; it was impossible to tell, by counting, how many there might be in the family; at least now while they were going in and out and running all over; but Nora said Mrs. Sandford had counted fifteen of them at one time.  That was in cold weather, when they had gathered on the piazza to get the nuts she threw to them.  This kind of intercourse with society had made the squirrels comparatively tame, so that they had no particular objections to shew themselves to the two children; and when Nora and Daisy kept quiet they had great entertainment in watching the gambols of the pretty grey creatures.  One in particular, the mother of the family, Nora said, was bolder or more familiar than the rest; and came often and came pretty near, to look at the children with her bright little eyes, and let them see her beautiful feathery tail and graceful motions.  It was a great delight to Daisy.  Nora had seen them before, as she said, and did not care quite so much about the sight.