Chapter 8

what with a tulip here and a cup of tea there, and a bright handkerchief, or a pair of shoes. Few of the people had spirit and cultivation enough to care for the flowers. But Maria cherished some red and white tulips and a hyacinth in heir kitchen window, as if they had been her children; and to Darry a white rose-tree I had given him seemed almost to take the place of a familiar spirit. Even grave Pete, whom I only saw now and then this winter at my readings, nursed and tended and watched a bed of crocuses with endless delight and care. All the while, my Sunday circle of friends grew constantly fewer; and the songs that were sung at our hindered meetings had a spirit in them, which seemed to me to speak of a deep-lying fire somewhere in the hearts of the singers, hidden, but always ready to burst into a blaze. Was it because the fire was burning in my own heart?

I met one of the two Jems in the pine avenue one day. He greeted me with the pleasantest of broad smiles.

"Jem," said I, "why don't you come to the house Sunday evenings, any more?"

"It don't 'pear practical, missie." Jem was given to large- sized words, when he could get hold of them.

"Mr. Edwards hinders you?"

"Mass' Ed'ards bery smart man, Miss Daisy. He want massa's work done up all jus' so."

"And he says that the prayer-meeting hinders the work, Jem?"

"Clar, missis, Mass' Ed'ards got long head; he see furder den me," Jem said, shaking his own head as, if the whole thing were beyond him. I let him go. But a day or two after I attacked Margaret on the subject. She and Jem, I knew, were particular friends. Margaret was oracular and mysterious, and looked like a thunder cloud. I got nothing from her, except an increase of uneasiness. I was afraid to go further in my inquiries; yet could not rest without. The house servants, I knew, would not be likely to tell me anything that would trouble me, if they could help it. The only exception was mammy Theresa; who with all her love for me had either less tact, or had grown from long habit hardened to the state of things in which she had been brought up. From her, by a little cross questioning, I learned that Jem and others had been forbidden to come to the Sunday readings; and their disobeying had been visited with the lash, not once nor twice; till, as mammy Theresa said, " 'peared like it warn't no use to try to be good agin de devil."

And papa was away on his voyage to China, away on the high seas, where no letter could reach him and Mr. Edwards knew that. There was a fire in my heart now, that burned with sharp pain. I felt as if it would burn my heart out. And now took shape and form one single aim and purpose, which became for years the foremost one of my life. It had been growing and gathering. I set it clear before me from this time.

Meanwhile, my mother's daughter was not willing to be entirely baffled by the overseer. I arranged with Darry that I would be at the Cemetery hill on all pleasant Sunday afternoons; and that all who wished to hear, me read, or who wished to learn themselves, might meet me there. The Sunday afternoons were often pleasant that winter. I was constantly at my post; and many a one crept round to me from the quarters and made his way through the graves and the trees to where I sat by the iron railing. We were safe there. Nobody but me liked the place. Miss Pinshon and the overseer agreed in shunning it. And there was promise in the blue sky, and hope in the soft sunshine, and sympathy in the sweet rustle of the pine leaves. Why not? Are they not all God's voices. And the words of the Book were very precious there, to me and many another. I was rather more left to myself of late. My governess gave me my lessons quite as assiduously as ever; but after lesson time she seemed to have something else to take her attention. She did not walk often with me, as the spring drew near; and my Sunday afternoons were absolutely unquestioned.

One day in March, I had gone to my favourite place to get out a lesson. It was not Sunday afternoon of course. I was tired with my day's work, or I was not very strong; for though I had work to do, the witcheries of nature prevailed with me to put down my book. The scent of pine buds and flowers made the air sweet to smell, and the spring sun made it delicious to feel. The light won its way tenderly among the trees, touching the white marble tombstones behind me, but resting with a more gentle ray upon the moss and turf where only little bits of rough board marked the sleeping places of our dependants. Just out of sight, through the still air I could hear the river, in its rippling, flow past the bank at the top of which I sat. My book hung in my hand, and the course of Universal History was forgotten; while I mused and mused over the two sorts of graves that lay around me, the two races, the diverse fate that attended them; while one blue sky was over, and one sunlight fell down. And "while I was musing, the fire burned," more fiercely than ever. David's had occasion when he wrote those words. "Then spake I with my tongue." I would have liked to do that. But I could do nothing; only pray.

I was very much startled while I sat in my muse, to bear a footstep coming. A steady, regular, footstep; no light trip of children; and the hands were in the field, and this was not a step like any of them. My first thought was, the overseer! come to spy me out. The next minute I saw through the trees and the iron railings behind me, that it was not the overseer. I knew _his_ wide-awake; and this head was crowned with some sort of a cap. I turned my head again and sat quiet; willing to be overlooked, if that might be. The steps never slackened. I heard them coming round the railing — then just at the corner — I looked up, to see the cap lifted, and a smile coming upon features that I knew; but my own thoughts were so very far away that my visitor had almost reached my side before I could recollect who it was. I remember I got up then in a little hurry.

"It is Doctor Sandford!" I exclaimed, as his hand took mine.

"Is it Daisy?" answered the doctor.

"I think so," I said.

"And I _think so_," he said, looking at me after the old fashion. "Sit down, and let me make sure."

"You must sit on the grass, then," I said.

"Not a bad thing, in such a pleasant place," he rejoined, sending his blue eye all round my prospect. "But it is not so pleasant a place as White Lake, Daisy."

Such a flood of memories and happy associations came rushing into my mind at these words, — he had not given them time to come in slowly, — I suppose my face showed it. The doctor looked at me and smiled.

"I see it _is_ Daisy," he said. "I think it certainly Daisy. So you do not like Magnolia?"

"Yes, I do," I said, wondering where he got that conclusion. "I like the _place_ very much, if —"

"I should like to have the finishing of that 'if' — if you have no objection."

"I like the _place_," I repeated. "There are some things about it I do not like."

"Climate, perhaps?"

"I did not mean the climate. I do not think I meant anything that belonged to the place itself."

"How do you do?" was the doctor's next question.

"I am very well, sir."

"How do you know it?"

"I suppose I am," I said. "I am not sick. I always say I am well."

"For instance, you are so well that you never get tired?"

"Oh, I get tired very often. I always did."

"What sort of things make you tired? Do you take too long drives in your pony-chaise?"

"I have no pony-chaise now, Dr. Sandford. Loupe was left at Melbourne. I don't know what became of him."

"Why didn't you bring him along? But any other pony would do, Daisy."

"I don't drive at all, Dr. Sandford. My aunt and governess do not like to have me drive as I used to do. — I wish I could!"

"You would like to use your pony-chaise again?"

"Very much. I know it would rest me."

"And you have a governess, Daisy? That is something you had not at Melbourne."

"No —" I said.

"A governess is a very nice thing," said the doctor, taking off his hat and leaning back against the iron railing, — "if she knows properly how to set people to play."

"To play!" I echoed. I don't know whether Miss Pinshon approves of play."

"Oh! She approves of work then, does she?"

"She likes work," I answered.

"Keeps you busy?"

"Most of the day, sir."

"The evenings you have to yourself?"

"Sometimes. Not always. Sometimes I cannot get through with my lessons, and they stretch on into the evening."

"How many lessons does this lady think a person of your age and capacity can manage in the twenty-four hours?" said the doctor, taking out his knife as he spoke and beginning to trim the thorns off a bit of sweet-briar he had cut. I stopped to make the reckoning.

"Give me the course of your day, Daisy. And, by the by, when does your day begin?"

"It begins at half past seven, Dr. Sandford."

"With breakfast?"

"No, sir. I have a recitation before breakfast."

"Please, of what?"

"Miss Pinshon always begins with mathematics."

"As a bitters. Do you find that it gives you an appetite?"

By this time I was very near bursting into tears. The familiar voice and way, the old time they brought back, the contrasts they forced together, the different days of Melbourne and of my Southern home, the forms and voices of mamma and papa, — they all came crowding and flitting before me. I was obliged to delay my answer. I knew that Dr. Sandford looked at me; then he went on in a very gentle way —

"Sweetbriar is sweet, — Daisy" — putting it to my nose. "I should like to know, how long does mathematics last, before you are allowed to have coffee?"

"Mathematics only lasts half an hour. But then I have an hour of study in Mental Philosophy before breakfast. We breakfast at nine."

"It must take a great deal of coffee to wash down all that," said the doctor lazily trimming his sweetbriar. "Don't you find that you are very hungry when you come to breakfast?"

"No, not generally," I said.

"How is that? Where there is so much sharpening of the wits, people ought to be sharp otherwise."

"My wits do not get sharpened," I said, half laughing. "I think they get dull; and I am often dull altogether by breakfast time."

"What time in the day do you walk?"

"In the afternoon — when we have done with the schoolroom. But lately Miss Pinshon does not walk much."

"So you take the best of the day for philosophy?"

"No, sir, for mathematics."

"Oh! — Well, Daisy, _after_ philosophy and mathematics have both had their turn; what then? when breakfast is over."

"Oh, they have two or three more turns in the course; of the day," I said. "Astronomy comes after breakfast; then Smith's _Wealth of Nations_; then Chemistry. Then I have a long History lesson to recite; then French. After dinner we have Natural Philosophy, and Physical Geography and Mathematics; and then we have generally done."

"And then what is left of you goes to walk," said the doctor.

"No, not very often now," I said. "I don't know why, Miss Pinshon has very much given up walking of late."

"Then what becomes of you?"

"I do not often want to do much of anything," I said. "To-day I came here."

"With a book," said the doctor. "Is it work or play?"

"My History lesson," I said, showing the book. "I had not quite time enough at home."

"How much of a lesson, for instance?" said the doctor, taking the book and turning over the leaves.

"I had to make a synopsis of the state of Europe from the third century to the tenth; — synchronising the event and the names."

"In writing?"

"I might write it if I chose, — I often do, — but I have to give the synopsis by memory."

"Does it take long to prepare, Daisy?" said the doctor, still turning over the leaves.

"Pretty long," I said, "when I am stupid. Sometimes I cannot do the synchronising, my head gets so thick; and I have to take two or three days for it."

"Don't you get punished, for letting your head get thick?"

"Sometimes I do."

"And what is the system of punishment at Magnolia for such deeds?"

"I am kept in the house for the rest of the afternoon sometimes," I said; "or I have an extra problem in mathematics to get out for the next morning."

"And _that_ keeps you in, if the governess don't."

"Oh, no," I said; "I never can work at it then. I get up earlier the next morning."

"Do you do nothing for exercise but those walks, which you do not take?"

"I used to ride last year," I said; "and this year I was stronger, and Miss Pinshon gave me more studies; and somehow I have not cared to ride so much. I have felt more like being still."

"You must have grown tremendously wise, Daisy," said the doctor, looking round at me now with his old pleasant smile. I cannot tell the pleasure and comfort it was to me to see him; but I think I said nothing.

"It is near the time now when you always leave Magnolia — is it not?"

"Very near now."

"Would it trouble you to have the time a little anticipated?"

I looked at him, in much doubt what this might mean. The doctor fumbled in his breast pocket and fetched out a letter.

"Just before your father sailed for China, he sent me this. It was some time before it reached me; and it was some time longer before I could act upon it."

He put a letter in my hand, which I, wondering, read. It said, the letter did, that papa was not at ease about me; that he was not satisfied with my aunt's report of me, nor with the style of my late letters; and begged Dr. Sandford would run down to Magnolia at his earliest convenience and see me, and make enquiry as to my well-being; and if he found things not satisfactory, as my father feared he might and judged that the rule of Miss Pinshon had not been good for me on the whole, my father desired that Dr. Sandford would take measures to have me removed to the North and placed in one of the best schools there to be found; such a one as Mrs. Sandford might recommend. The letter further desired, that Dr. Sandford would keep a regular watch over my health, and suffer no school training nor anything else to interfere with it; expressing the writer's confidence that Dr. Sandford knew better than any one what was good for me.

"So you see, Daisy," the doctor said, when I handed him back the letter, "your father has constituted me in some sort your guardian, until such time as he comes back."

"I am very glad," I said, smiling.

"Are you? That is kind. I am going to act upon my authority immediately, and take you away."

"From Magnolia?" I said breathlessly.

"Yes. Wouldn't you like to go and see Melbourne again for a little while?"

"Melbourne!" said I; and I remember how my cheeks grew warm. "But — will Miss Pinshon go to Melbourne?"

"No; she will not. Nor anywhere else, Daisy, with my will and permission, where you go. Will that distress you very much?"

I could not say yes, and I believe I made no answer, my thoughts were in such a whirl.

"Is Mrs. Sandford in Melbourne — I mean, near Melbourne — now?" I asked at length.

"No, she is in Washington. But she will be going to the old place before long. Would you like to go, Daisy?"

I could hardly tell him. I could hardly think. It began to rush over me, that this parting from Magnolia was likely to be for a longer time than usual. The river murmured by — the sunlight shone on the groves on the hillside. Who would look after my poor people?

"You like Magnolia after all?" said the doctor. "I do not wonder, as far as Magnolia goes. You are sorry to leave it."

"No," I said, — "I am not sorry at all to leave Magnolia; I am very glad. I am only sorry to leave — some friends."

"Friends —" said the doctor.

"Yes."

"How many friends?"

"I don't know," said I. "I think there are a hundred or more."

"Seriously?"

"Oh, yes," I said, "They are all on the place here."

"How long will you want, Daisy, to take proper leave of these friends?"

I had no idea he was in such practical haste; but I found it was so.