IX.
DAISY AND THE NECKLACE.
Our petite Heroine—How she talked to the Poets—The Morocco Case—Daisy's Eyes make Pictures—Tears, idle Tears!
Mortimer was still sleeping an "azure-lidded sleep," as Keats has it, when Daisy again came softly to the door.
A pretty little woman was Daisy Snarle.
She had one of those faces which you sometimes pass in the street and remember afterward, ever connecting it with some exquisite picture, or, if you happen to be in a poetical mood, a dainty bit of music. That face was very sweet in the coquettish red and white "kiss-me-quick" which used to shade it sunny mornings, when Daisy went to market—a very beautiful face when she looked up earnestly—a very holy face when she sat thoughtfully in her room at twilight. Her hair was dark chestnut, and she wore it in one heavy braid over her forehead. Her eyes were so gentle and saucy by turns that I could never tell whether they were gray or hazel; but her smile was frank, her laugh musical, and her whole presence so purely womanly, that one could not but be better for knowing her. Yet Daisy was not faultless. She had a wild little will of her own—none the worse for that, however. She could put her foot down—and a sweet little foot it was!—a temptation of a foot, cased in a tight boot—high in the instep, and arched like the proud neck of an Arabian mare, or the eye-brows of a Georgian girl. And then the heel of said boot!—But I daren't trust myself further.
Daisy stood looking at Mortimer with her fond, thoughtful eyes. Soon she grew tired of this, and, placing a stool by his chair, sat down and commenced sewing. From time to time she looked up from her work and smiled quietly.
"How he sleeps!" said Daisy, with a low laugh. "Will he be cross if I disturb him?"—and she laughed again. "I wonder," she said, at length, "if a tiny song would awaken him?"
So she sang in a gentle voice those touching lines of Barry Cornwall, commencing with—