"Yes, and what will you be good for to-morrow?" said Miss Cardigan. "You must lie down and take a bit of rest."
I felt no weariness; but I remember the grave, tender examination of Thorold's eyes, which seemed to touch me with their love, to find out whether I—and himself—might be indulged or not. It was a bit of the thoughtful, watchful affection which always surrounded me when he was near. I never had it just so from anybody else.
"It won't do, Daisy," said he gaily. "You would not have me go in company with self-reproaches all day to-morrow? You must lie down here on the sofa; and, sleep or not, we'll all be still for two hours. Aunt Catherine will thank me to stop talking for that length of time."
I was not sleepy, but Miss Cardigan and Thorold would not be resisted. Thorold wheeled up the sofa, piled the cushions, and made me lie down, with the understanding that nobody should speak for the time he had specified. Miss Cardigan, on her part, soon lost herself in her easy chair. Thorold walked perseveringly up and down the room. I closed my eyes and opened my eyes, and lay still and thought. It is all before me now. The firelight fading and brightening: Thorold took care of the fire; the gleam of the gaslight on the rows of books; Miss Cardigan's comfortable figure gone to sleep in the corner of her chair; and the figure which ever and anon came between me and the fire, piling or arranging the logs of wood, and then paced up and down just behind me. There was no sleep for my eyes, of course. How should there be? I seemed to pass all my life in review, and as I took the bearings of my present position I became calm.
I rose up the moment the two hours were over, for I could bear
the silence no longer, nor the losing any more time. Thorold stopped his walk then, and we had along talk over the fire by ourselves, while Miss Cardigan slept on. Trust her, though, for waking up when there was anything to be done. Long before dawn she roused herself and went to call her servants and order our breakfast.
"What are you going to do now, Daisy?" said Thorold, turning to me with a weight of earnestness in his eyes, and a flash of that keen inspection which they sometimes gave me.
"You know," I said, "I am going to study as hard as I can for a month or two more,—till my school closes."
"What then, Daisy? Perhaps you will find some way to come on and see me at Washington—if the rebels don't take it first?"
It must be told.