ute. "I'll get you your luncheon out here, Miss
Daisy. You'll be faint for want of something to eat. Will you have it
out here?"
"You needn't say where I am, June."
[Illustration]
June went off, and Daisy was left alone. Very weary and exhausted, she
sat leaning her head against the stone at her side, in a sort of
despairing quiet. The little ripple of the water on the pebbly shore
struck her ear; it was the first thing eye or ear had perceived to be
pleasant that day. Daisy's thoughts went to the hand that had made the
glittering river, with all its beauties and wonders; then they went to
what Mr. Dinwiddie had said, that God will help his people when they are
trying to do any difficult work for him; he will take care of them; he
will not forsake them. Suddenly it filled Daisy's soul like a flood,
the thought that Jesus _loves_ his people; that she was his little child
and that he loved her; and all his wisdom and power and tenderness were
round her and would keep her. Her trouble seemed to be gone, or it was
like a cloud with sunlight shining all over it. The very air was full of
music, to Daisy's feeling, not her sense. There never was such sunlight,
or such music either, as this feeling of the love of Jesus. Daisy
kneeled down by the rock and rested her forehead against it, to pray for
joy.
She was there still, when June came back and stopped and looked at her,
a vague expression of care sitting in her black eyes, into which now an
unwonted moisture stole. June had a basket, and as soon as Daisy sat
down again, she came up and began to take things out of it. She had
brought everything for Daisy's dinner. There was a nice piece of
beefsteak, just off the gridiron; and rice and potatoes; and a fine bowl
of strawberries for dessert. June had left nothing; there was the roll
and the salt, and a tumbler and a carafe of water. She set the other
things about Daisy, on the ground and on the rock, and gave the plate of
beefsteak into her hand.
"Miss Daisy, what will you do for a table?"
"It's nicer here than a table. How good you are, June. I didn't know I
wanted it."
"I know you do, Miss Daisy."
And she went to her sewing, and sewed perseveringly, while Daisy eat her
dinner.
"June, what o'clock is it?"
"It's after one, ma'am."
"You haven't had your own dinner?"
June mumbled something, of which nothing could be understood except that
it was a general abnegation of all desire or necessity for dinn
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