"Then you know her?"
"Yes. I know everybody."
The family at Melbourne were found just taking their late tea as the doctor and Daisy entered. They were met with complaints of the heat; though Daisy thought the drawing room was exceeding pleasant, the air came in at the long windows with such gentle freshness from the river. The doctor took a cup of tea and declared the day was excellent if you only rode fifty miles through the heat of it.
"Coolness is coolness, after that," he said.
Daisy sat in a corner and wondered at the people. Hot? and suffocating? she had no recollection of any such thing all day. How delicious it had been in that green dell under the walnut tree, with the grey squirrels!
"How has it been with you, Daisy?" said her aunt at last.
"Nice, aunt Gary."
Two or three people smiled; Daisy's favourite word came out with such a dulcet tone of a smooth and clear spirit. It was a syrup drop of sweetness in the midst of flat and acid qualities.
"It has been satisfactory, has it?" said her aunt, in a tone which did not share the character. "Come here, Daisy—I have got something for you. You know I robbed you a little while ago, and promised to try to find something to make amends. Now come and see if I have done it. Preston, fetch that box here."
A neat wooden case of some size was brought by Preston, and set at his mother's feet. Mrs. Gary unlocked it, and went on to take out of its enveloping coverings a very elegant French doll; a real empress Eugenie. The doll's face was even modelled into some likeness to the beauty she was named after; a diadem sat gracefully on her head, and her robes were a miniature imitation of royalty, but very exquisitely fashioned. Everybody exclaimed at the perfection of the beautiful toy, except Daisy herself, who stood quite still and quiet looking at it. Mrs. Gary had not done yet. The empress had a wardrobe; and such variety and elegance and finish of attire of all sorts rarely falls to the lot of a doll. A very large wardrobe it was, and every article perfectly finished and well made as if meant for actual wear. Mrs. Gary displayed her present; Daisy looked on, standing by her father's knee and with one hand resting on it.