They would call him that, while his home name was Felix. His father called him baby at first, then son. He liked everybody, but he adored his own father. Barbe stood a little in the background, not that she loved him less, but she gave a continual thanksgiving that he had met with such a warm welcome.
Daffodil was amused at his pretty ways, and the cunning bits of mischief that she often kept from his mother. She was so certain of her father's affection now. She took a warm interest in his doings, she sided with him about the country, and listened delightedly to the stories of bravery and endurance, and absolutely quarrelled with grandad when he predicted the wretched times that would follow throwing off the protection of the mother country, and the surety that an appeal would be made again for her protection.
"An' just look at what they are saying about your precious Washington! They'll turn him out before he's served his four years. No two of them think alike! And how's the money to be raised for expenses! You silly child, you don't know anything about it. An' your father's a gey fule!"
"I'll never come in this house again, grandad!" with a dignity that made her pink cheeks red and her blue eyes black.
"Then sure you'll never go out of it on such terms!" and grandad caught her and scrubbed her with his stubby beard, and hugged her so tight she was glad to promise she would come to-morrow. And likely she ran over that very evening.
"He's not worth the minding," Norry would declare. "He don't believe the half of it, and says it to see you spurt up. He's half the time spilin' for a quarrel that has no more in it than an empty eggshell."
Daffodil began to have some new interests in her life. She was growing rapidly, she went to school, and met children of her own age. Several chapels had been started, and there was a real clergyman, though they could not have him regularly, and then a reader took the service. The men had various outdoor diversions that had been brought from "the old country," and were never loath to join the women's frolics, at which there was dancing, and, it must be admitted, not a little drinking.
Norah took her out occasionally, "for," she said to Barbe, "it isn't just right to make an old woman of her. They love the fun when they're young, and that's natural, an' it's a sin to crowd them out of it."
Barbe was very domestic. Her house, her little boy, her sewing and spinning, filled up all her time. The child was a marvel to her. He was so bright and active, so pretty and merry, but altogether different from Daffodil.
Once when they had talked over great-grandfather's bequest, Bernard had said, "It seems almost a pity that Dilly had not been the boy, with that great estate to come to him. A man can do so much more in a business way than a woman. Not but that the boy will be cared for, father's heart is set on him. And I shall see that he is well provided for if I live."