"Go along with you, do! As if I should consent to having a young jack-a-napes like you for a cavalier."
Here Daisy, who had run after Dick when he went for the cream, and has been absent ever since, reappears amongst them all with some little sketches which she has been doing under Honor's supervision in Hugh's absence, and which she is anxious to show to him.
After they have been duly examined and admired, Sir Edward calls her over to him.
"I fancy your friend Dr. John can finish your story for you now, Daisy," he whispers. "Go and tell him I say so."
Nothing loth, the child goes across to where he is sitting, and demands his instant and undivided attention.
So John Sinclair, with one arm round the child as she stands close beside him, begins briefly narrating the old fairy tale in a low voice, hurrying over it until he comes to the part in which he has made the required alterations.
"Wait a minute!" cries Daisy excitedly; "you must speak out loud now, because I don't believe any of the others know the new ending. Now then."
"So," resumes John, "the woodcutter asked the princess to marry him—"
"He was a prince really, you know," puts in Daisy parenthetically, for the benefit of the company generally.
"And," continues John, "as all her sisters were married excepting one—"