s old.

"Retsch! yes, I know him--but what does the thing mean?"

"It is supposed to be the devil playing with a young man--for his soul,"
Daisy said very gravely.

"Who plays the devil?"

"Preston does."

"And who is to be the angel?"

"I am to be the angel," said Daisy.

"Very judicious. How do you like this new play, Daisy?"

"It is very amusing. I like to see the pictures."

"Not to be in them?"

"I think not, Dr. Sandford."

"Daisy, what else are you doing, besides playing tableaux, all these
days?"

"I drive about a good deal," said Daisy. Then looking up at her friend
with an entirely new expression, a light shining in her eye and a
subdued sweetness coming into her smile, she added--

"Molly is learning to read, Dr. Sandford."

"Molly!" said the doctor.

"Yes. You advised me to ask leave to go to see her, and I did, and I got
it."

Daisy's words were a little undertone; the look that went with them the
doctor never forgot as long as he lived. His questions about the
festivities she had answered with a placid, pleased face; pleased that
he should ask her; but a soft irradiation of joy had beamed upon the
fact that the poor cripple was making a great step upwards in the scale
of human life. The doctor had not forgotten his share in the permission
Daisy had received, which he thought he saw she suspected. Unconsciously
his arm closed upon the little figure it held and brought her nearer to
him; but his questions were somehow stopped. And Daisy offered no more;
she stood quite still, till a movement at the table seemed to call for
her. She put her hand upon the doctor's arm, as a sign that it must hold
her no longer, and sprang away.

And soon now all the young people went back again to the library. Mrs.
Sandford came with them to serve in her arduous capacity of dresser.
June attended to give her help.

"Now what are we going to do?" whispered Nora in breathless excitement.
"What is to be the first picture? O Daisy, I wish you would get them to
have my picture last of all."

"Why, Nora?"

"O because. I think it ought to come last. Aren't you afraid? Whew!
lam."

"No, I don't think I am."

"But won't you want to laugh?"

"Why?" Daisy. "No, I do not think I shall want to laugh."

"I shall be too frightened to laugh," said Jane Linwood.

"I don't see, Daisy, how you will manage those queer wings of yours,"
Nora resumed.

"I have not got to manage them at all. I have only to keep st