"Well, I suppose not," said my aunt. "I was going to tell you what your father said, Daisy. He said—you know it takes a long while to get to China and back, and if it does him good he will stay a little while there; and then there's the return voyage, and there may be delays; so altogether it was impossible to say exactly how long he and your mother will be gone. I mean, it was impossible to know certainly that they would be able to come home by next summer; indeed I doubt if your father ever does come home."
I waited in silence.
"So altogether," my aunt went on, turning for a moment to Mme. Ricard, "there was a doubt about it; and your father
said, he charged me to tell Daisy, that if she will make herself contented—that is, supposing they cannot come home next year, you know—if she will make herself happy and be patient and bear one or two years more, and stay at school and do the best she can, then, the year after next or the next year he will send for you, your father says, unless they come home themselves—they will send for you; and then, your father says, he will give you any request you like to make of him. Ask anything you can think of, that you would like best, and he will do it or get it, whatever it is. He didn't say like King Herod, 'to the half of his kingdom,' but I suppose he meant that. And meanwhile, you know you have a guardian now, Daisy, and there is no use for me in your affairs; and having conveyed to you your mother's gifts and your father's promises, I suppose there is nothing further for me to do to you."
I was silent yet, thinking. Two years more would be a dear purchase of any pleasure that might come after. Two years! And four were gone already. It seemed impossible to wait or to bear it. I heard no more of what my aunt was saying, till she turned to me again and asked, "Where are you going to pass the vacation?"
I did not know, for Mrs. Sandford was obliged to be with her sister still, so that I could not go to Melbourne.
"Well, if your new guardian thinks well of it—you can consult him if it is necessary—and if he does not object, you can be with me if you like. Preston has leave of absence this summer, I believe; and he will be with us."
It was in effect arranged so. My aunt took me about the country from one watering place to another; from Saratoga to the White Mountains; and Preston's being with us made it a
gay time. Preston had been for two years at West Point; he was grown and improved everybody said; but to me he was just the same. If anything, not improved; the old grace and graciousness of his manner was edged with an occasional hardness or abruptness which did not use to belong to him, and which I did not understand. There seemed to be a latent cause of irritation somewhere.
However, my summer went off smoothly enough. September brought me back to Mme. Ricard's, and in view of Miss Cardigan's late roses and budding chrysanthemums. I was not sorry. I had set my heart on doing as much as could be done in these next two years, if two they must be.