"Oh, yes. I shall come very often, Juanita if I can. You know when I am out with my pony, I can come very often, I hope."
Juanita quite well understood what was meant by the little pauses and qualifying clauses of this statement. She passed them over.
But Daisy shed a good many tears during Juanita's prayer that night. I do not know if the black woman shed any; but I know that some time afterwards, and until late in the night, she knelt again by Daisy's bedside, while a whisper of prayer, too soft to arouse the child's slumbers, just chimed with the flutter and rustle of the leaves outside of the window moving in the night breeze.
CHAPTER XXI.
TEA AT HOME.
The next day turned out so warm, that the carriage was not brought for Daisy till late in the afternoon. Then it came, with her father and Dr. Sandford; and Daisy was lifted in Mr. Randolph's arms, and carefully placed on the front seat of the carriage, which she had all to herself. Her father and the doctor got in and sat opposite to her; and the carriage drove away.
The parting with Juanita had been very tenderly affectionate, and had gone very near to Daisy's heart. Not choosing to show this more than she could help, as usual, Daisy at first lay still on the cushions with an exceedingly old-fashioned face; it was as demure and sedate as if the gravity of forty years had been over it. But presently the carriage turned the corner into the road to Melbourne; Daisy caught sight for a second of the houses and church spires of Crum Elbow, that she had not seen for so long. A pink flush rose over her face.
"What is it, Daisy?" said Mr. Randolph, who had been watching her.
"Papa it's so nice to see things again!"
"You had a pretty dull time of it at Mrs. Benoit's?" remarked the doctor.