r. Sandford with a grave wistful wonder
in them, that he should know all this so well and yet never acknowledge
the hand that had given the wasp the tools and instinct for his work,
one so exactly a match for the other. But Dr. Sandford never did. He
used to notice those grave looks of Daisy, and hold private speculation
with himself what they might mean; private amused speculation; but I
think he must have liked his little patient as well as been amused at
her, or he would hardly have kept up as he did this personal ministering
to her pleasure, which was one of the great entertainments of Daisy's
life at this period. In truth only to see Dr. Sandford was an
entertainment to Daisy. She watched even the wave of his long locks of
hair. He was a fascination to her.

"Are you in a hurry to get home?" he would ask her every now and then.
Daisy always said, "No sir; not till you think it is time;" and Dr.
Sandford never thought it was time. No matter what other people said,
and they said a good deal; he ordered it his own way; and Daisy was
almost ready to walk when he gave permission for her to be taken home in
the carriage. However, the permission was given at last.

"To-morrow night I shall not be here, Juanita," Daisy remarked as she
was taking her supper.

"No, Miss Daisy."

"You will be very quiet when I am gone."

It had not been a bustling house, all those weeks! But the black woman
only answered,

"My love will come to see Juanita sometimes?"

"O yes. I shall come very often, Juanita--if I can. You know when I am
out with my pony, I can come very often,--I hope."

Juanita quite well understood what was meant by the little pauses and
qualifying clauses of this statement. She passed them over.

But Daisy shed a good many tears during Juanita's prayer that night. I
do not know if the black woman shed any; but I know that some time
afterwards and until late in the night, she knelt again by Daisy's
bedside, while a whisper of prayer, too soft to arouse the child's
slumbers, just chimed with the flutter and rustle of the leaves outside
of the window moving in the night breeze.

[Illustration: THE DOCTOR'S TRILOBITE.]

End of Project Gutenberg's Melbourne House, Volume 1, by Susan Warner

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MELBOURNE HOUSE, VOLUME 1 ***

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