Poppy gazed hard at the child, who was sitting upright on her sofa, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining, and a fitful quiver about her pretty lips.
"What does it all mean?" thought practical Poppy; "it's more than common worries ails the little dear. I'm sure I'd bear Sarah to my dying day to help her, the sweet lamb! I wonder, now, has she lost some of Miss Primrose's money. I know they're short enough of means, the darling ladies, and maybe the child has mislaid some of their money, and is frightened to tell. Dear me, I shouldn't think Miss Primrose would be hard on any one, least of all on a sweet little lamb like that; but there's never no saying, and the child looks pitiful. Well, I'm not the one to deny her."
"Miss Daisy," said Poppy, aloud, "I have got exactly fifteen shillings in my purse, and that's the price of a third single to Rosebury, and no more. It's true enough I meant to go down there to-night, and never to see Aunt Flint again, but it's true also that she'd give her eyes to have me back, and was crying like anything when I said good-bye to her. 'Sarah,' she says, 'it's you that's ongrateful, and you'll find it out, but if you comes back again you shall be forgiven, Sarah,' she says. So I can go back for a week, Miss Daisy, and if you have lost fifteen shillings, why, I can lend it to you, dearie."
"Oh, Poppy, you are a darling!" said little Daisy. "Oh, Poppy, how can I ever, ever thank you? Yes, I have—lost—fifteen shillings. You shall have it back again, Poppy, and Poppy, I will always love you, and always remember that you were the best of good fairies to me, and that you took me out of the power of a terrible ogre."
"All right, Miss Daisy," said Poppy, returning the child's embrace; "here's the fifteen shilling, and welcome. Only I never would have called sweet Miss Primrose an ogre, Miss Daisy."
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE JOURNEY.
Poppy went away presently, and the moment she was gone Daisy began to make some hasty little preparations.
"I'll take the Pink with me," she said to herself. "I'll empty all the things out of my little work-basket, and my darling Pink can sleep in it quite snugly, and she'll be great company to me, for I cannot help feeling very shaky, and I do start so when I see any one the least like Mr. Dove in the distance. I mustn't think about being frightened now—this is the least I could do, and if I'm terrified all over I must go through with it."