“Not now. If the doctor says you are well enough to go out a few minutes in the afternoon, I will bring it, and you shall have it every day.”
He, too, spoke as to a familiar friend, while he noted how wan and frail she appeared, and yet how beautiful and strong of body and soul she would be in health. Her mother interposed, saying:
“Why, Daphne, dear, I did not know you were acquainted.”
The girl colored faintly, but David answered, with one of his frank, straight looks in the eye:
“We are not old acquaintances, Mrs. Dalrymple, but, if you will allow me to say so, Miss Dalrymple has no truer friend than me.”
The sick girl’s eyes filled with tears, through which she smiled upon him.
“This is the gentleman who bought your tricycle, then, that you have spoken of so often this week. But, my dear, I thought you did not know his name.”
“I fear, madam,” said David, “that she didn’t quite catch my name when we were made acquainted,” and he turned such a droll look upon the girl that she laughed the first merry laugh heard in that room in a long time.
Then David turned the conversation by asking the doctor if he thought Miss Dalrymple was well enough to ride out once or twice a day, say, up and down the block, if he pushed the wheel, and saw that she did not exert herself. The doctor thought that five or ten minutes of very gentle exercise in the open air every day, morning and evening, after breakfast and after tea, would do her great good. But it must be only on clear, sunshiny days, and she must not be out after sundown nor before the air was dry and warm in the morning.