"No, dear. I do not wish you to study out of school. I am glad you want to improve, but you have as much to do there as is good for you; and at home I want you to have rest and play. You are improving quite as fast as could be expected, and for a time you must be content to go on with those who are younger than yourself."
"But it makes me ashamed," pleaded Daisy, again.
"There is no reason for that," said Mrs. Forster, patting the hot cheek she raised towards her. "The other children do not laugh at you and make you uncomfortable, do they?"
"Oh, no, ma'am," said Daisy; "they are all so good to me, and when they can't help seeing what a dunce I am" (here Daisy's tears overflowed), "they always say kind things about how I never went to school before, and how my own dear mamma was drowned, and there was nobody to teach me till I came to you."
"You are not a dunce, dear," said the lady. "A child who idles away her time when she should be studying, and does not care whether or no she learns as much as is fit for her, is a dunce: not a little girl who really wishes to be industrious, but does not know quite as much as others of her own age only because God has not given her the same advantages in time past. No one will think my Daisy a dunce. Now, we must have no more studying at home, no more lessons than those Miss Collins sets you."
Daisy did not look satisfied: on the contrary, she even pouted a little.
"Daisy," said Mrs. Forster, "suppose Uncle Frank were to give you some beautiful and costly thing which would be of great use to you in time to come if you took good care of it, say a watch: what would you do with it?"
"Why! I would take great care, oh! such care of it," said Daisy, opening her eyes in some surprise at the question. She did not see what that could have to do with her studies.