Daisy saw it; nevertheless she answered, "The first chapter of
Genesis."
"Oh, you are there, are you?" said the doctor. "What light have I thrown upon the passage, Daisy? It has not appeared to myself."
Now Daisy hesitated. A sure though childish instinct told her that her thoughts and feelings on this subject would meet with no sympathy. She did not like to speak them.
"Daisy has peculiar views, Dr. Sandford," said Preston.
But the doctor paid him no attention. He looked at Daisy, lifted her up, and arranged her pillows; then as he laid her back said,
"Give me my explanation of that chapter, Daisy."
"It isn't an explanation, sir; I did not know there was anything to explain."
"The light I have thrown on it then out of the sun."
Preston was amused, Daisy saw; she could not tell whether the doctor was; his blue eyes gave no sign, except of a will to hear what she had to say. Daisy hesitated, and hesitated, and then, with something very like the old diplomacy she had partly learned and partly inherited from her mother, she said, "If you will read the chapter, I will tell you."
Now Daisy did not think Dr. Sandford would care to read the chapter, or perhaps have the time for it; but, with an unmoved face, he swung himself round on his chair, and called on Mrs. Benoit for a Bible. Preston was in a state of delight, and Mrs. Benoit of wonder. The Bible was brought, Dr. Sandford took it, and opened it.