Alas, what a change! Serpents seemed coiling and hissing about Maud's breast; her eyes were like the eyes of a wolf; the color on her cheeks made Daisy think of the fires she had seen burning so far down in the centre of the earth; and the ivory whiteness of her forehead was the dead white of a corpse.
It was not strange that, Maud's beauty gone, her sister grew less submissive; for Daisy, even with her spectacles, had found nothing except beauty to love in her sister. She thought a lovely heart must be hidden somewhere underneath the lovely face.
But now she had looked past the outside, and all was deformed and dreadful.
"I should like to know if you mean to answer," said Maud pettishly; "I told you either to throw down the sticks, or else I would walk home alone."
"I must help the poor dame; and as for our walk, we both know the way," was Daisy's quiet answer.
So they parted; and Daisy began to cheer the dame, who groaned dreadfully, by telling of all the fine things at the fair, and the use she had made of her spectacles, and how grateful she must always be for such a wondrous gift.
It pleased the dame to have her glasses praised; and so she forgot to limp and grumble about her wounds, and walked on gayly enough by Daisy's side, telling sometimes the wisest, and sometimes the drollest, stories she had ever heard.
But their mirth was interrupted by the sound of sobs; and Daisy's quick eyes discovered, sitting among the bushes by the way, a little girl, all rags and dust, crying as if her heart would break.
"Never mind her; she will get over it soon enough," said the dame.
"I wonder how you would have liked it, had I said that about you, an hour ago," thought Daisy, but made no reply, except to turn and ask the child what she could do for her.