upon it that she
is very nice indeed. As a rule, I like people very much when they are
there, and I get along excellently without them when they are not."

"Quite--quite true," said Gladys, with a touch of acidity.

"It's much the most sensible plan," continued Daisy, perceiving, but
completely ignoring, the tone. "It does no good to miss people, and, as
I say, I seldom do it. But I always miss Aunt Jeannie. I should like to
see her every day of my life. It would be dreadful to see most people
every day, though I like them so much when I do see them. Oh, Gladys
darling, don't look as if you were in church! You can't take things
lightly, you know."

"And you can't take them in any other way," remarked Gladys.

"Oh, but I can; it is only that I don't usually choose to. It is a great
blessing I don't take every one seriously. If I took Willie seriously, I
should find him a great bore; as it is, I think he is quite charming,
and I should certainly marry him if I were fifty."

"It was forty-three just now," said Gladys.

"Yes; but being with you has made me grow older very quickly," said
Daisy.

Gladys laughed; with Daisy it was very true that "c'est le ton qui fait
la musique," and the same words which in another tone could have wounded
her, now merely amused. It had taken her a long time to get used, so to
speak, to this brilliant, vivid friend, who turned such an engaging
smile on the world in general, and shone with supreme impartiality on
the wicked and the good, and to know her, as she knew her now, with
greater thoroughness than she knew herself. Ethically, if Gladys had
been put to the question on her oath, she would have had to give the
most unsatisfactory account of her friend, and, to sum up all questions
in one, it would have come to this--that she believed Daisy to be quite
heartless. But, humanly, there was in Daisy much to take the place of
that profound organ. She had the joy of life and the interest in life to
a supreme degree, and though she resolutely turned her back on anything
disagreeable or ugly, her peremptory dismissal of such things was more
than made up for by her unbounded welcome of all that pleased her. You
had only to please her (and she was very ready to be pleased), and she
poured sunlight on you. And Gladys, who was naturally rather shy, rather
slow to make friends, rather reticent, soon grasped this essential fact
about Daisy, and having grasped it, held tightly to it. She felt she