“Are you bound thither now?”

“No, sir—­I am going home.”

“Rose bush and all?  Daisy, let Lewis get Loupe home, and you come here and ride with me.  Come!  I want you.”

Truly Daisy wanted nothing else.  She left rose bush and watering pot, chaise and pony, to Lewis’s management, and gladly let the doctor take her up beside him.  She liked to drive with him; he had a fine horse and went fast; and there were other reasons.

Now they drove off in fine style; fast, over the good roads; whisked by Melbourne, sped away along south, catching glimpses of the river from time to time, with the hills on the further side hazily blue and indistinct with the September haze of sunbeams.  Near hand the green of plantations and woodland was varied with brown grainfields, where grain had been, and with ripening Indian corn and buckwheat; but more especially with here and there a stately roof-tree or gable of some fine new or old country house.  The light was mellow, the air was good; in the excitement of her drive Daisy half forgot her perplexity and discomfiture.  Till the doctor said, suddenly looking round at her with a smile,

“Now I should like to know the history of that rose bush.”

“O, there is no history about it,” said Daisy, quite taken by surprise.

“Everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end,” said the doctor.  “What was the beginning of this?”

“Only, Dr. Sandford,” said Daisy doubtfully,—­“I was sorry for that poor woman, after what you told me about her.”

“Molly Skelton?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you thought to comfort her with rose bushes?”

“No sir,—­but—­I wanted to get on good terms with her.”

“Are you on any other terms?”

“She does not know me, you know, sir,” said Daisy lifting to her friend a face that was beyond his comprehension,—­“and I do not think she was very well pleased to see me in her garden a little while ago.”

“You have been in her garden, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Daisy, will you excuse me for asking, why you should be on any terms whatever with Molly Skelton?”

“She is so unhappy, Dr. Sandford,”—­Daisy said, looking up again.

“And do you think you can do anything to make her less unhappy?”

“I thought”—­Daisy did not look up now, but the doctor watching her saw a witnessing tinge that he knew coming about her eyelids, and a softened line of lip, that made him listen the closer,—­“I thought—­I might teach her something that would make her happy,—­if I could.”

“What would you teach her, Daisy?”

“I would teach her to read—­perhaps—­I thought; if she would like me and let me.”

“Is reading a specific for happiness?”

“No sir—­but—­the Bible!” Daisy said with a sudden glance.  And so clear and sure the speech of her childish eye was, that the doctor though believing nothing of it would not breathe a question of that which she believed.