"You and I cannot be on two sides of anything, Daisy?"
"Papa - you know on what side of most things I am -" I replied to this difficult question.
"Do I? No, I do not know that I do. What side is it, Daisy?"
"On the Lord's side, papa, when I can find out what that is."
"Make me sure that you have found it, and I will be on that side too," he said, as he kissed me.
The words filled me with a great joy. For they were not spoken in defiance of the supposed condition, but rather, as it seemed to me, in desire and love of it. Had papa come to that? The new joy poured like a flood over all the dry places in my heart, which had got into a very dry state with hearing the conversation of the evening. I went to bed tired and happy.
Nevertheless I awoke to the consciousness that I had a nice piece of navigation before me, and plenty of rough water in all probability. The best thing would be for me to be as silent as possible. Could I be silent? They all wanted to hear what I would say. Every eye had sought mine this past evening.
I was the first in the breakfast-room, and papa was the next. We were alone. He took me tenderly in his arms and held me fast, looking at me and kissing me by turns.
"Are you well now, papa?" I asked him. "Are you quite well again?"
"Well enough," he answered; "not just as I was once."