One day in March I had gone to my favourite place to get out
a lesson. It was not Sunday afternoon, of course. I was tired with my day's work, or I was not very strong; for though I had work to do, the witcheries of nature prevailed with me to put down my book. The scent of pine-buds and flowers made the air sweet to smell, and the spring sun made it delicious to feel. The light won its way tenderly among the trees, touching the white marble tombstones behind me, but resting with a more gentle ray upon the moss and turf where only little bits of rough board marked the sleeping-places of our dependants. Just out of sight, through the still air I could hear the river, in its rippling, flow past the bank at the top of which I sat. My book hung in my hand, and the course of Universal History was forgotten, while I mused and mused over the two sorts of graves that lay around me, the two races, the diverse fate that attended them, while one blue sky was over, and one sunlight fell down. And "while I was musing the fire burned" more fiercely than ever David's had occasion when he wrote those words, "Then spake I with my tongue." I would have liked to do that. But I could do nothing; only pray.
I was very much startled while I sat in my muse to hear a footstep coming. A steady, regular footstep; no light trip of children; and the hands were in the field, and this was not a step like any of them. My first thought was, the overseer's come to spy me out. The next minute I saw through the trees and the iron railings behind me that it was not the overseer. I knew his wideawake; and this head was crowned with some sort of a cap. I turned my head again and sat quiet; willing to be overlooked, if that might be. The steps never slackened. I heard them coming round the railing—then just at the corner—I looked up to see the cap lifted, and a smile coming upon
features that I knew; but my own thoughts were so very far away that my visitor had almost reached my side before I could recollect who it was. I remember I got up then in a little hurry.
"It is Doctor Sandford!" I exclaimed, as his hand took mine.
"Is it, Daisy?" answered the doctor.
"I think so," I said.
"And I think so," he said, looking at me after the old fashion. "Sit down, and let me make sure."
"You must sit on the grass, then," I said.
"Not a bad thing, in such a pleasant place," he rejoined, sending his blue eye all round my prospect. "But it is not so pleasant a place as White Lake, Daisy."