Daisy   By: Susan Warner (1819-1885)

Produced by Daniel FROMONT

DAISY

BY ELIZABETH WETHERELL

AUTHOR OF "THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD," "QUEECHY," ETC., ETC.

LONDON :

WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED

NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. MISS PINSHON

CHAPTER II. MY HOME

CHAPTER III. THE MULTIPLICATION TABLE

CHAPTER IV. SEVEN HUNDRED PEOPLE

CHAPTER V. IN THE KITCHEN

CHAPTER VI. WINTER AND SUMMER

CHAPTER VII. SINGLEHANDED

CHAPTER VIII. EGYPTIAN GLASS

CHAPTER IX. SHOPPING

CHAPTER X. SCHOOL

CHAPTER XI. A PLACE IN THE WORLD

CHAPTER XII. FRENCH DRESSES

CHAPTER XIII. GREY COATS

CHAPTER XIV. YANKEES

CHAPTER XV. FORT PUTNAM

CHAPTER XVI. HOPS

CHAPTER XVII. OBEYING ORDERS

CHAPTER XVIII. SOUTH AND NORTH

CHAPTER XIX. ENTERED FOR THE WAR

CHAPTER I.

MISS PINSHON.

I want an excuse to myself for writing my own life; an excuse for the indulgence of going it all over again, as I have so often gone over bits. It has not been more remarkable than thousands of others. Yet every life has in it a thread of present truth and possible glory. Let me follow out the truth to the glory.

The first bright years of my childhood I will pass. They were childishly bright. They lasted till my eleventh summer. Then the light of heavenly truth was woven in with the web of my mortal existence; and whatever the rest of the web has been, those golden threads have always run through it all the rest of the way. Just as I reached my birthday that summer and was ten years old, I became a Christian.

For the rest of that summer I was a glad child. The brightness of those days is a treasure safe locked up in a chamber of my memory. I have known other glad times too in my life; other times of even higher enjoyment. But among all the dried flowers of my memory, there is not one that keeps a fresher perfume or a stronger scent of its life than this one. Those were the days without cloud; before life shadows had begun to cast their blackness over the landscape. And even though such shadows do go as well as come, and leave the intervals as sun lit as ever; yet, after that change of the first life shadow is once seen, it is impossible to forget that it may come again and darken the sun. I do not mean that the days, of that summer were absolutely without things to trouble me; I had changes of light and shade; but on the whole, nothing that did not heighten the light. They were pleasant days I had in Juanita's cottage at the time when my ankle was broken; there were hours of sweetness with crippled Molly; and it was simply delight I had all alone with my pony Loupe, driving over the sunny and shady roads, free to do as I liked and go where I liked. And how I enjoyed studying English history with my cousin Preston. It is all stowed away in my heart, as fresh and sweet as at first. I will not pull it out now. The change, and my first real life shadow came, when my father was thrown from his horse and injured his head. Then the doctors decided he must go abroad and travel, and mamma decided it was best that I should go to Magnolia with aunt Gary and have a governess.

There is no pleasure in thinking of those weeks. They went very slowly, and yet very fast; while I counted every minute and noted every step in the preparations. They were all over at last; my little world was gone from me; and I was left alone with aunt Gary.