The sunbeams showed it bright and stately on the higher ground; they poured over a rich luxuriant spread of greensward and trees, highly kept; stately and fair; and Daisy could not help remembering that in all that domain, so far as she knew, there was not a thought in any heart of being the sort of soldier she wished to be. She got up from the ground and smoothed her dress down.
"Captain Drummond," she said, with a grave dignity that was at the same time perfectly childish too, "I have told you about myself I can't tell you about other people."
"Daisy, you are not angry with me!"
"No, sir."
"Don't you sometimes permit other people to ask your pardon in
Preston Gary's way?"
Daisy was about to give a quiet negative to this proposal, when perceiving more mischief in the Captain's face than might be manageable, she pulled away her hand from him, and dashed off like a deer. The Captain was wiser than to follow.
Later in the day, which turned out a very warm one, he and Gary McFarlane went down again to the edge of the bank, hoping to get if they could a taste of the river breeze. Lying there stretched out under the trees, after a little while they heard voices. The voices were down on the shore. Gary moved his position to look.
"It's that child what under the sun is she doing! I beg pardon for naming anything warm just now, Drummond but she is building fortifications of some sort, down there."
Captain Drummond came forward too. Down below them, a little to the right, where a tiny bend in the shore made a spot of shade, Daisy was crouching on the ground apparently very busy. Back of her a few paces was her dark attendant, June.
"There's energy," said Gary. "What a nice thing it is to be a child and play in the sand!"