With an excitement very unusual in her, she flew at Betty, and, throwing both arms about her neck, covered her broad, smiling face with warm kisses. Betty returned them with a will, holding her fast in both arms; and then, putting her from her and looking at her from head to foot, put on an air of strong approval, and spoke to the General in the words you have read at the beginning of this chapter.
"An' isn't it fit for a princess, she is?" she continued, quite unable to keep back her admiration and pleasure at the child's improved appearance. "Isn't it fit for a princess she is; and Saacyfuts or no Saacyfuts, isn't it a right her own folks would have to the name if they found her now? Sure I'd be saacy meself to have the ownin' of a child like that. An' her not a bit spoiled, but just as lovin' and free-like as when she had none but me an' Jack."
Then Daisy was told she might take Betty and Jack away and show them the neat little wash-house, shaded by a fine clump of trees, with its nice bleaching and drying ground beyond, its laundry on the first floor, and two small bedrooms above, where they were to sleep. Betty was enchanted, and expressed over and over again her satisfaction at the change in her life. It was far better, she thought, to stand at the wash-tub or ironing-table, breathing the sweet country air, with all its pleasant sights and sounds about her, than to do the same at her stall in the hot, dusty, crowded city.
As for Jack, when he saw the splendid garden, when Daisy had led them there, and knew it was to be his privilege to work among those lovely flowers, he could not contain himself, but shouted and shouted, turned somersault after somersault, till recalled to himself by Betty's reminder that he must "remember that Margaret—she begged her pardon,—Miss Daisy—was a little lady now, and he must mind his manners before her."
But Daisy was so like her old self, so free from any pride or haughtiness in her new position, that Jack found it hard to remember she was any other than the little waif whom he had pitied and petted for so long; and his "manners" were brought to his mind with much more force by the sight of the gray-haired old Scotch gardener under whom he was to work, and before whom his gambols ceased at once.
Meanwhile General and Mrs. Forster were talking on a very interesting subject, for Betty's words about Daisy's lost friends had given the lady a new idea.
"Frank," she said to her husband, "did you notice what Betty said about Daisy's friends?"
"Yes," he answered. "I hope she won't turn Daisy's head and make her vain with her praise and flattery."
"I'm not afraid," said his wife. "Daisy has a right to her name, the modest, unaffected little girl; and she has too much sense to be spoiled by what she looks upon only as the overflowing of Betty's affection. But don't you know that the Irish often say saacy when they mean proud?"
"Oh, yes. I have often noticed it in people of Betty's class," answered the General; "but what has that to do with Daisy's friends?"