. It is all before
me now. The firelight fading and brightening: Thorold took care of the
fire; the gleam of the gaslight on the rows of books; Miss Cardigan's
comfortable figure gone to sleep in the corner of her chair; and the
figure which ever and anon came between me and the fire, piling or
arranging the logs of wood, and then paced up and down just behind me.
There was no sleep for my eyes, of course. How should there be? I
seemed to pass all my life in review, and as I took the bearings of my
present position I became calm.

I rose up the moment the two hours were over, for I could bear the
silence no longer, nor the losing any more time. Thorold stopped his
walk then, and we had along talk over the fire by ourselves, while
Miss Cardigan slept on. Trust her, though, for waking up when there
was anything to be done. Long before dawn she roused herself and went
to call her servants and order our breakfast.

"What are you going to do now, Daisy?" said Thorold, turning to me
with a weight of earnestness in his eyes, and a flash of that keen
inspection which they sometimes gave me.

"You know," I said, "I am going to study as hard as I can for a month
or two more,--till my school closes."

"What then, Daisy? Perhaps you will find some way to come on and see
me at Washington--if the rebels don't take it first?"

It must be told.

"No--I cannot.--My father and mother wish me to go out to them as soon
as I get a chance."

"Where?"

"In Switzerland."

"Switzerland! To stay how long?"

"I don't know--till the war is over, I suppose. I do not think they
would come back before."

"I shall come and fetch you then, Daisy."

But it seemed a long way off. And how much might be between. We were
both silent.

"That is heavy for me," said Thorold at last. "Little Daisy, you do
not know how heavy!"

He was caressing my hair, smoothing and stroking it as he spoke. I
looked up and his eyes flashed fire instantly.

"Say that in words!" he exclaimed, taking me in his arms. "Say it,
Daisy! say it. It will be worth so much to me."

But my lips had hardly a chance to speak.

"Say what?"

"Daisy, you _have_ said it. Put it in words, that is all."

But his eyes were so full of flashing triumph that I thought he had
got enough for the time.

"Daisy, those eyes of yours are like mountain lakes, deep and still.
But when I look quite down to the bottom of them--sometimes I see
something--I thought I did then."

"Wha