I
must run."

CHAPTER XIII.

As she made her escape one way, so did Daisy by another. When Preston
came back from attending Mrs. Sandford to her carriage he could find
nothing of his little co-worker. Daisy was gone.

In all haste and with a little self-reproach for having forgotten it,
she had ordered her pony chaise; and then examined into the condition of
her stores. The sponge cake was somewhat dry; the sickle pears wanted
looking over. Part of them were past ripe. Indeed so many of them, that
Daisy found her basket was no longer properly full, when these were
culled out. She went to Joanna. Miss Underwood, soon made that all right
with some nice late peaches; and Daisy thought with herself that sponge
cake was very good a little dry and would probably not find severe
criticism at Molly's house. She got away without encountering her
cousin, much to her satisfaction.

Molly was not in her garden. That had happened before. Daisy went in,
looked at the flowers, and waited. The rose tree was flourishing; the
geranium was looking splendid; with nothing around either of them that
in the least suited their neighbourhood. So Daisy thought. If all the
other plants--the ragged balsams and "creeping Charley" and the
rest--could have been rooted up, then the geranium, and the rose would
have shewn well together. However, Molly did not doubtless feel this
want of suitability; to her the tall sunflower was no question a
treasure and a beautiful plant. Would Molly come out!

It seemed as if she would not. No stir, and the closed house door
looking forbidding and unhopeful. Daisy waited, and waited, and walked
up and down the bit of a path, from the gate quite to the house door; in
hopes that the sound of her feet upon the walk might be heard within.
Daisy's feet did not make much noise; but however that were, there was
no stir of a sound anywhere else. Daisy was patient; not the less the
afternoon was passing away and pretty far gone already, and it was the
first of October now. The light did not last as long as it did a few
months ago. Daisy was late. She must go soon, if she did not see Molly;
and to go without seeing her was no part of Daisy's plan. Perhaps Molly
was sick. At any rate, the child's footsteps paused at the door of the
poor little house, and her fingers knocked. She had never been inside of
it yet, and what she saw of the outside was not in the least inviting.
The little windows, lined with paper cu