"A very good thing, Nellie, but not the first of all things, my daughter," said Mrs. Ransom, putting her arm about the waist of her little girl, who had risen and come over to her side.
"No, mamma," said Nellie softly, "and you think I have made it the first of all things lately, do you not?"
Before Mrs. Ransom could answer, sounds of woe came from the piazza without, Daisy's voice raised in trouble once more.
Tears and smiles both lay near the surface with Daisy, and had their way by turns. One moment she would be in the depth of despair, the next dimpling all over with laughter and frolic; so that Nellie did not fear any very serious disaster when she ran to see what the matter was.
The great misery of Daisy's life was this,—that people were always taking her for a boy, a mistake which she considered both unnatural and insulting, and which she always resented with all her little might.
Nellie found her sitting at the head of the piazza steps, crying aloud, with her straw hat pressed over her face by both hands.
"What's the matter, Daisy?" asked her sister.
"Oh! such a wicked butcher-man came to my house," answered Daisy, in smothered tones from beneath her hat.
"What did he do? What makes him wicked?" asked Nellie.
"He sweared at me," moaned Daisy; "oh! he sweared dreadful at me."