"Daisy, I wish you would be a little more frank. Have you any objection to tell me what you were doing?"
"No, papa; but I did not think it would give you any pleasure. I was only trying to do something."
"It would give me pleasure to have you tell about it."
"I must tell you more then, papa." And standing with her arm on her father's shoulder, looking over to the blue mountains on the other side of the river, Daisy went on.
"There is a poor woman living half a mile from here, papa, that I saw one day when I was riding with Dr. Sandford. She is a cripple. Papa, her legs and feet are all bent up under her, so that she cannot walk at all; her way of moving is by dragging herself along over the ground on her hands and knees; her hands and her gown all clown in the dirt."
"That is your idea of extreme misery, is it not, Daisy?"
"Papa, do you not think it is it must be very uncomfortable?"
"Very, I should think."
"But that is not her worst misery. Papa, she is all alone; the neighbours bring her food, but nobody stops to eat it with her. She is all alone by night and by day; and she is disagreeable in her temper, I believe, and she has nobody to love her and she loves nobody."
"Which of those two things is the worst, Daisy?"