her mother might send for her before she could get undressed. But
no summons came; June was speedy, thinking and saying it was a very good
thing for Daisy to do; and then she went off and left her alone with the
moonlight. Daisy was in no hurry then. She knelt by her beloved window,
where the scent of the honeysuckle was strong in the dewy air; and with
a less throbbing heart prayed her prayer. But she was not at ease yet;
it was very uncertain in her mind how her mother would take this order
of her father's; and what would come after, if she was willing to let it
pass. So Daisy could not go to sleep, but lay wide awake and fearing in
the moonlight, and listening to every sound in the house that came to
her ears.
The moonlight shone in peacefully, and Daisy lying there and growing
gradually calmer, began to wonder in herself that there should be so
much difficulty made about anybody's doing right. If she had been set on
some wrong thing, it would have made but a very little disturbance--if
any; but now, when she was only trying to do right, the whole house was
roused to prevent her. Was it so in those strange old times that the
eleventh chapter of Hebrews told of?--when men, and women, were stoned,
and sawn asunder, and slain with the sword, and wandered like wild
animals in sheepskins and goatskins and in dens and caves of the earth?
all for the name of Jesus. But if they suffered once, they were happy
now. Better anything, at all events, than to deny that name!
The evening seemed excessively long to Daisy, lying there on her bed
awake, and listening with strained ears for any sound near her room. She
heard none; the hours passed, though so very slowly, as they do when all
the minutes are watched; and Daisy heard nothing but dim distant noises,
and grew pretty quiet. She had heard nothing else, when turning her head
from the moonlight window she caught the sight of a white figure at her
bedside; and by the noble form and stately proportions Daisy knew
instantly whose figure it was. Those soft flowing draperies had been
before her eyes all day. A pang shot through the child, that seemed to
go from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.
"Are you awake, Daisy?"
"Yes, mamma," she said feebly.
"Get up. I want to speak to you."
Daisy got off the bed, and the white figure in the little night dress
stood opposite the other white figure, robed in muslin and laces that
fell around it like a cloud.
"Why di
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