ter XV. 227

Chapter XVI. 240

Chapter XVII. 247

Chapter XVIII. 263

Chapter XIX. 277

Chapter XX. 286

Chapter XXI. 293

Chapter XXII. 308

Chapter XXIII. 320

Chapter XXIV. 333

Chapter XXV. 344

Chapter XXVI. 357

Chapter XXVII. 365

DAISY'S AUNT.

CHAPTER I.

Daisy Hanbury poked her parasol between the bars of the cage, with the
amiable intention of scratching the tiger's back. The tiger could not be
expected to know this all by himself, and so he savagely bit the end of
it off, with diabolical snarlings. Daisy turned to her cousin with a
glow of sympathetic pleasure.

"What a darling!" she said. "He didn't understand, you see, and was
perfectly furious. And it cost pounds and pounds, and I've spent all my
allowance, and so I can't buy another, and my complexion will go to the
dogs. Let's go there, too; the dingoes are absolutely fascinating.
We'll come back to see these angels fed."

Gladys laughed.

"Daisy, you have got the most admirable temper," she said. "I should
have called that brute any names except 'darling' and 'angel.'"

"I know you would, because you don't understand either it or me. I
understand both perfectly. You see, you don't love fierce wild
things--things that are wicked and angry, and, above all, natural. I
don't mind good, sweet, gentle things, like--oh, like almost everybody,
if only they are sweet and good naturally. But generally they are not.
Their sweetness is the result of education or morality, or something
tedious, not the result of their natures, of themselves. Oh, I know all
about it! Gladys, this parasol is beyond hope. Let's conceal it in the
bushes like a corpse."

Daisy looked round with a wild and suspicious eye.

"There's a policeman," she said. "I'm sure he'll think that I have
murdered my own parasol. Oh, kind Mr. Policeman--there, that softened
him, and he's looking the other way."

Gladys gave a little shriek of dismay as Daisy thrust her parasol into a
laurustinus.

"Oh! but the handle, and the ribs!" she cried. "It only wanted a new
point, and--and to be recovered. Daisy, I never saw such extravagance.
You mustn't leave it. I'll have it done up for you."

"That's angelic of you," said Daisy; "but will you carry it for me in
the meantime? It's