"Why, so she does," said Mattie. "Isn't that funny? Only Daisy's eyes always look sorry except when she is laughing or speaking, and that little girl's were so full of mischief and laughing."
"How big was she?" asked Lola.
"Oh, about as large as your sister Bertie. Not near old enough to come to school."
"I s'pose there are no other children but her," said Fanny Delisle. "Willie saw the family come yesterday; and he said there were only the lady and gentleman, and the little girl and servants. If there are no children as old as us, maybe it won't come into their heads to let us see the aviary again."
This short conversation put an end to the half hope, half wish, that had been in Daisy's heart. Even supposing the stranger who looked so like General Forster were the gentleman who had taken Beechgrove, he could be nothing to her (not until now had she said even to herself that she had hoped it might be so), for the family did not answer to her own. She had papa and mamma, little brother Theodore, and a baby sister, a very little baby; and only this child of three years old or more seemed to belong to the new-comers; and she had no sister so old.
Daisy reasoned this all out for herself with a sad, disappointed little heart, forgetting that time had not stood still with her own family any more than it had with her, and that changes might have come to them as well as to herself.
This was on Friday, and nothing more was seen or heard of the strangers by Daisy or her playmates, till Sunday came. But then such a strange and happy thing came to pass, and in such a wonderful way. "Just like a book thing," Lily Ward afterwards said.
It was the loveliest of Sabbath days, and every thing seemed to feel it.
"What day is it, Bertie?" asked Mr. Swan, as his youngest daughter stood on the piazza steps ready for church.