'Come with me,' said Alan, when he and Marjorie were left alone. 'It's no use crying. I'm awfully cut up too, but I do believe it isn't anything more than a faint. Estelle will be all right, you see. It is hard luck her fainting like that, for we had got out of the scrape jolly well. Don't you think so?'
'Oh, yes!' returned Marjorie, still feeling rather shaky with the fright she had had about her cousin. 'If only Estelle had not fainted, it would have been very exciting and jolly fun.'
'So it was! You come along to the turret, and let's talk this over. I've a heap to tell you, but'—and he gazed earnestly into her face—'you will promise you won't say a word till I give you leave?'
Marjorie promised, and the brother and sister betook themselves to the little turret chamber. There was an ancient oak settle at one end of the dingy little room, which had a horsehair cushion, rather worn and threadbare, but still comfortable.
(Continued on page [87].)
THE DAISY.
AM only a poor little Daisy,' it said,
'Not tall like the Lily, nor like the Rose red;
'Mid the flowers of the wealthy I never am seen,
I have only to blossom each day on the green.
'The Violet has fragrance, the Rose and the Pink;
The Primrose is sweet by the river's green brink;
The gold of the Cowslip is bright on the sea—
All these have a sweetness not granted to me.'
But into the meadows a child strayed one day,
She passed by the Lily and Rose on the way;
Nor gathered the Primrose, the Violet blue,
But went to the field where the small Daisy grew.
And all through the hours of that bright sunny day,
Where the sweet Daisy blossomed she lingered to play;
And the Daisy was glad when, at even's soft fall,
She said that its blossom was sweetest of all.