ou, or rather, does it not occur to you now,
that the girl's design in coming may have been this very purpose of
her freedom?"

"I do not think it was," I said.

"Even if not, it will be surely put in her head by other people before
she has been at the North long; and she will know that she is her own
mistress."

I was silent still. I knew that I wished she might.

"Do you think," Dr. Sandford went on, "that in this view of the case
we had better send her back to Magnolia when you leave Washington?"

"No," I said.

"I think it would be better," he repeated.

"Oh, no!" I said. "Oh, no, Dr. Sandford. I can't send her back. You
will not send her back, will you?"

"Be quiet," he said, holding fast the hand which in my earnestness I
had put in his; "she is not my servant; she is yours; it is for you to
say what you will do."

"I will not send her back," I said.

"But it may be right to consider what would be Mr. Randolph's wish on
the subject. If you take her, he may lose several hundred dollars'
worth of property: it is right for me to warn you. Would he choose to
run the risk?"

I remember now what a fire at my heart sent the blood to my face. But
with my hand in Dr. Sandford's, and those blue eyes of his reading me,
I could not keep back my thought.

"She ought to be her own mistress," I said.

A brilliant flash of expression filled the blue eyes and crossed
his face--I could hardly tell what, before it was gone. Quick
surprise--pleasure--amusement--agreement; the first and the two last
certainly; and the pleasure I could not help fancying had lent its colour
to that ray of light which had shot for one instant from those
impenetrable eyes. He spoke just as usual.

"But, Daisy, have you studied this question?"

"I think I have studied nothing else, Dr. Sandford."

"You know the girl is not yours, but your father's."

"She isn't anybody's," I said slowly, and with slow tears gathering in
my heart.

"How do you mean?" said he, with again the quiver of a smile upon his
lips.

"I mean," I said, struggling with my thoughts and myself, "I mean that
nobody could have a right to her."

"Did not her parents belong to your father?"

"To my mother."

"Then she does."

"But, Dr. Sandford," I said, "nobody _can_ belong to anybody--in that
way."

"How do you make it out, Daisy?"

"Because nobody can give anybody a _right_ to anybody else in that
way."

"Does it not give your mother a right, that the