"Yes, child. Don't you know most people's voices have a little thread, if it is not more, of sharpness or roughness, coming out somewhere. It is sure to come out somewhere; in one form of speech or another; with some people it only appears in the laugh, and they should never laugh. Your voice is like a chime of bells." And my mother took me in her arms, half-dressed as I was, and pressed her lips full upon mine; looking into my face and playing with me and smiling at me; finishing with another pressure of her mouth to mine.
"Your lips are very sweet," she said, with a half sigh. "I wonder who else will think so!"
And if one bit of vanity or self-exaltation could have been stirred in my thoughts, though it were by my mother's praises, these last words banished it well. I was sobered to the depths of my heart; so sobered, that I found it expedient to be busy with my dressing, and not expose my face immediately to any more observations. And even when I went down stairs, my father's first remark was, -
"It is the same Daisy!"
"Did you doubt it, papa?" I asked, with a smile.
"No, my pet."
"Then why do you say that as soon as I make my appearance!"
"I can hardly tell - the consciousness forced itself upon me.
You are looking at life with a microscope, - as of old."
"With a microscope, papa!"
"To pick up invisible duties and find out indiscernible dangers -"