order. Daisy could get up and be dressed; nobody knows what a luxury that is unless he has been hindered of it for a good while. She could stand at her window and look out; and go down on her own feet to join the family at breakfast. Her father procured her a seat next himself now, which Daisy did not use to have; and she enjoyed it. She knew he enjoyed it too; and it made breakfast a very happy time to Daisy. After breakfast she was at her own disposal, as of old. Nobody wished her to do anything but please herself.

At this moment nothing pleased Daisy better than to go on with English history. With Preston, if she could get him; if not, alone, with her book and her tray map. Poring over it, Daisy would lie on the sofa, or sit on a little bench with the tray on the floor; planting her towns and castles, or going hack to those already planted with a fresh interest from new associations. Certain red-headed and certain black-headed and certain green-headed pins came to be very well known and familiar in the course of time. And in course of time, too, the soil of England came to be very much overspread with little squares of pink blotting-paper. To Daisy it grew to be a commentary on the wickedness of mankind. Preston remarked on the multitude there was of Egyptian spoons.

"What do you mean by that, Preston?" said his aunt.

"Causes of quarrel, ma'am."

"Why do you call them Egyptian spoons?"

"Causes of trouble, I should say, ma'am."

"And again I say, why do you call them Egyptian spoons?"

"I beg your pardon, aunt Felicia. Egypt was always a cause of trouble to the faithful; and I was afraid little Daisy has had just a spoonful of it lately."

"Daisy, what have you been saying to your cousin?"

"Nothing, mamma, about that; only what Preston asked me."

"I am sure you did not say what I asked of you, Daisy. She told me nothing at all, aunt Felicia, except by what she did not tell me."

"She behaved very sweetly about it, indeed," said Mrs. Gary. "She made me feel quite easy about keeping it. I shall have to find out what I can send, to Daisy that she will like."

"What are you and Preston doing there?" Mrs. Randolph asked with a cloudy face.

"Studying, mamma; I am. English history."

"That is no way of studying; and that tray—what have you got in it?"

"England, mamma."

Preston laughed. Mrs. Randolph did not join him.

"What have you got in that thing, Daisy? sand?"

"O no, mamma—it's something—it's prepared clay, I believe."

"Prepared!" said Mrs. Randolph. "Prepared for something besides my library. You are hanging over it all day, Daisy—I do not believe it is good for you."

"O mamma, it is!"

"I think I shall try whether it is not good for you to be without it."

"O no, mamma." Daisy looked in dismay. "Do ask Dr. Sandford if he thinks it is not good for me."

"There he is, then," said Mrs. Randolph, "Doctor, I wish you would see whether Daisy is occupying herself, in your judgment, well, when she is hanging over that thing half the day."

Dr. Sandford came up. Daisy was not afraid of his decision, for she knew he was on her side. Mrs. Randolph on the other hand did not wish, to dispute it, for she was, like most other people, on the doctor's side. He came up and looked at the tray.

"What is this?"

"The map of England, sir."

"Pray what are you doing with it?"

"Making it, sir, and studying English history."

"What are these pins? armies? or warriors? they are in confusion enough."

"O there is no confusion," said Daisy. "They are castles and towns."

"For instance?—"

"This is Dover Castle," said Daisy, touching a red-headed pin; "and this is Caernarvon, and Conway; and these black ones are towns. There is London—and Liverpool—and York—and Oxford—don't you see?"

"I see, but it would take a witch to remember. What are you doing?"

"Studying English history, sir; and as fast as we come to a great town or castle we mark it. These bits of paper shew where the great battle-fields are."

"Original!" said the doctor.

"No sir, it is not," said Daisy. "Captain Drummond taught it to me."

"What, the history?"

"No; but this way of playing."

Preston was laughing and trying to keep quiet. Nothing could be graver than the doctor.

"Is it interesting, this way of playing?"

"Very!" said Daisy, with a good deal of eagerness, more than she wished to shew.

"I wish you would forbid it, Dr. Sandford," said Daisy's mother. "I do not believe in such a method of study, nor wish Daisy to be engrossed with any study at all. She is not fit for it."

"Whereabouts are you?" said the doctor to Daisy.

"We are just getting through the wars of the Roses."

"Ah! I never can remember how those wars began—can you?"

"They began when the Duke of York tried to get the crown of Henry the
Sixth. But I think he was wrong—don't you?"

"Somebody is always wrong in those affairs," said the doctor. "You are getting through the wars of the Roses. What do you find was the end of them?"

"When the Earl of Richmond came. We have just finished the battle of Bosworth Field. Then he married Elizabeth of York, and so they wore the two roses together."

"Harmoniously?" said the doctor.

"I don't know, sir. I do not know anything about Henry the Seventh yet."

"What was going on in the rest of the world while the Roses were at war in England?"

"O I don't know, sir!" said Daisy, looking up with a sudden expression of humbleness. "I do not know anything about anywhere else."

"You do not know where the Hudson River was then."

"I suppose it was where it is now?"

"Geographically, Daisy; but not politically, socially, or commercially. Melbourne House was not thinking of building; and the Indians ferried their canoes over to Silver Lake, where a civilized party are going in a few days to eat chicken salad under very different auspices."

"Were there no white people here?"

"Columbus had not discovered America, even. He did that just about seven years after Henry the Seventh was crowned on Bosworth Field."

"I don't know who Columbus was," Daisy said, with a glance so wistful and profound in its sense of ignorance, that Dr. Sandford smiled.

"You will hear about him soon," he said, turning away to Mrs. Randolph. That lady did not look by any means well pleased. The doctor stood before her looking down, with the sort of frank, calm bearing that characterized him.

"Are you not, in part at least, a Southerner?" was the lady's first question.

"I am sorry I must lose so much of your good opinion as to confess myself a Yankee," said the doctor steadily.

"Are you going to give your sanction to Daisy's plunging herself into study, and books, and all that sort of thing, Dr. Sandford?"