Daisy wondered and obeyed, mentally, in silence; making no answer to either speaker. It was not her habit either to shew her dismay on such occasions, and she shewed none. But when she went up an hour later to be undressed for bed, instead of letting the business go on, Daisy took a Bible and sat down by the light and pored over a page that she had found.
The woman waiting on her, a sad-faced mulatto, middle-aged and respectable looking, went patiently round the room, doing or seeming to do some trifles of business, then stood still and looked at the child, who was intent on her book.
"Come, Miss Daisy," said she at last, "wouldn't you like to be undressed?"
The words were said in a tone so low they were hardly more than a suggestion. Daisy gave them no heed. The woman stood with dressing gown on her arm and a look of habitual endurance upon her face. It was a singular face, so set in its lines of enforced patience, so unbending. The black eyes were bright enough, but without the help of the least play of those fixed lines, they expressed nothing. A little sigh came from the lips at last, which also was plainly at home there.
"Miss Daisy, it's gettin' very late."
"June, did you ever read the parable of the tares?"
"The what, Miss Daisy?"
"The parable about the wheat and the tares in the Bible—in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew?"
"Yes, ma'am,"—came somewhat dry and unwillingly from June's lips, and she moved the dressing-gown on her arm significantly.
"Do you remember it?"