"Can't you say as much for him, Daisy?" said my mother.

"As far as looks go -" I answered slowly, surveying him. He was excessively handsome, and his mother's own boy in grace of person and manner. I could see that in the first moment.

"As far as looks go" - my mother repeated. "_That_ is like Daisy. Is it the very same Daisy?"

I looked up at her, and they looked at me. Oddly enough, we were all silent. Had I changed so much?

"Mamma, there is the difference between ten and seventeen," I said. "I don't think there is much other."

"And between formed and unformed," said my brother Ransom; for my father and mother were still silent, and I could hardly bear to meet their eyes.

"What is formed, and what is unformed?" I asked, trying to make it a light question.

"My opinion is not unformed," said Ransom, - "and your destiny is - formed."

"Papa," said I, "Ransom is very quick in deciding upon my destiny." But with that look into each other's eyes, Ransom's words were forgotten; my father clasped me in a fresh fond embrace and my head went down upon his shoulder again. And we were all still. Words are nothing at such times. I think one rather speaks light words, if any; thoughts are too deep to come out. At last my mother remarked that our toilettes were among the unformed things, and suggested that we should go to our rooms for a little while before dinner. I got up from papa's knee and followed mamma; and pa.s.sing Ransom with a smile, he suddenly clasped me in his arms and kissed me.

"I am proud of you, Daisy," he whispered.

Arrived in mamma's room, her tenderness came out after her own fashion. She examined me; her hands touched me caressingly; she helped me to dress, although her maid was at hand.

"You did not tell me you had such beautiful hair," she said, when I had unbound it to put it in order.

"Mamma!" I laughed. "Why should I?"

"And there are a great many other things you have not told me," she went on. I had to control myself to prevent a start, though her words meant nothing.

"Of course, mamma," I answered.

"Yes; you could hardly have been expected to give me a catalogue raisonne of your advantages. Do you know them yourself, Daisy?"

"Mamma, - I suppose I know some of them."

"Do you know, for instance, that your skin is exquisite, in colour and texture?"

"Mrs. Sandford used to tell me so," I said.

My mother drew the tips of her fingers over my cheek.

"And now, at my saying that, comes a little rose hue here, as delicate as the inside of a sh.e.l.l. But you have lost all the look of delicate condition, Daisy; this is the colour of perfect health."

"Dr. Sandford has taken care of me, mamma."

"Your father trusted a great deal to Dr. Sandford. Do you think his trust was well placed?"

"n.o.body could have taken more care of me, mamma. Dr. Sandford has been very good."

"He always was your favourite," she remarked.

"Well, mamma, he deserved all I have given him."

"Don't give anybody much, - unless I bid you," my mother said, laughingly. "Daisy, you have matured better even than I ever thought you would, or than your aunt Gary told me. Your figure is as good as ever mine was."

She took up one of my hands, looked at it, kissed it, and as she let it drop asked carelessly, -

"What has become of Preston now?"

I felt as if breakers were all around me. "He has joined the Southern army," I said.

"When did you see him?"

"Not since a year ago."

"Where then?"

"At West Point, mamma. He only graduated this spring."

"Were you long at West Point?"

"Yes, ma'am - some weeks."

"Dr. Sandford did not show remarkable care in that."

"He thought so, mamma, for he found me not well, and took me away immediately from school, without waiting for the term to close. Mrs. Sandford and he, were going to West Point - and so -"

"West Point did you good?"

"I grew well there."

"Your aunt tells me, your voice is very uncommon, Daisy. Is she right in that?"

"Mamma - you can judge better than I. It is not so easy for me to judge how it sounds."

"You know how it sounds to you."

"Yes, but then I am thinking of the music. I cannot tell, mamma, how it sounds to other people."

"Well, we shall be able to judge by and by," my mother said, in a satisfied tone. "Your speaking voice is as calm and sweet as I ever heard."

"_Calm?_ mamma," I said, laughing.

"Yes, child. Don't you know most people's voices have a little thread, if it is not more, of sharpness or roughness, coming out somewhere. It is sure to come out somewhere; in one form of speech or another; with some people it only appears in the laugh, and they should never laugh. Your voice is like a chime of bells." And my mother took me in her arms, half-dressed as I was, and pressed her lips full upon mine; looking into my face and playing with me and smiling at me; finishing with another pressure of her mouth to mine.

"Your lips are very sweet," she said, with a half sigh. "I wonder who else will think so!"

And if one bit of vanity or self-exaltation could have been stirred in my thoughts, though it were by my mother's praises, these last words banished it well. I was sobered to the depths of my heart; so sobered, that I found it expedient to be busy with my dressing, and not expose my face immediately to any more observations. And even when I went down stairs, my father's first remark was, -

"It is the same Daisy!"