Daisy
principle."
I turned this over in my mind. Had I done this, when I was choosing my
chinchilla cap and grey cloak? A little ray of infinite brightness
began to steal in upon their quiet colours and despised forms.
"If the rich are to give their all, as well as the poor, it doesn't
say--mind you--that they are to give it all to the hungry, or all to
the destitute; but only, they are to give it all _to Christ_. Then, He
will tell them what to do with it; do ye understand, my dear?"
Miss Cardigan's eye was watching me, not more kindly than keen. A wise
and clear grey eye it was.
"But isn't it difficult to know sometimes what to do?" I said. "I have
been so puzzled to know about dresses. Mamma is away, and I had to
decide."
"It's no very difficult," said Miss Cardigan,--"if once ye set your
face in the right _airth_--as we speak. My dear, there's a great many
sorts of dresses and bonnets and things; and I'd always buy just that
bonnet and that gown, in which I thought I could do most work for my
Master; and that wouldn't be the same sort of bonnet for you and for
me," she said with a merry smile. "Now ye'll have another cup of tea,
and ye'll tell me if my tea's good."
It was wonderfully good to me. I felt like a plant dried up for want
of water, suddenly set in a spring shower. Refreshment was all around
me, without and within. The faces of the flowers looked at me through
the glass, and the sweet breath of them came from the open door. The
room where I was sitting pleased me mightily, in its comfortable and
pretty simplicity; and I had found a friend, even better than my old
Maria and Darry at Magnolia. It was not very long before I told all
about these to my new counsellor.
For the friendship between us ripened and grew. I often found a
chance to fill my place at the dear little tea-table. Sundays I could
always be there; and I went there straight from afternoon church, and
rested among Miss Cardigan's books and in her sweet society and in the
happy freedom and rest of her house, with an intensity of enjoyment
which words can but feebly tell. So in time I came to tell her all my
troubles and the perplexities which had filled me; I was willing to
talk to Miss Cardigan about things that I would have breathed to no
other ear upon earth. She was so removed from all the sphere of my
past or present life, so utterly disconnected from all the persons and
things with which I had had to do, it was like telling about them to a
being of another planet. Yet she was not so removed but that her
sympathies and her judgment could be living and full grown for my
help; all ready to take hold of the facts and to enter into the
circumstances, and to give me precious comfort and counsel. Miss
Cardigan and I came to be very dear to each other.
All this took time. Nobody noticed at first, or seemed to notice, my
visits to the "house with the flowers," as the girls called it. I
believe, in my plain dress, I was not thought of importance enough to
be watched. I went and came very comfortably; and the weeks that
remained before the summer vacation slipped away in quiet order.
Just before the vacation, my aunt came home from Europe. With her came
the end of my obscurity. She brought me, from my mother, a great
supply of all sorts of pretty French dresses hats, gloves, and
varieties--chosen by my mother--as pretty and elegant, and simple too,
as they could be; but once putting them on, I could never be unnoticed
by my schoolmates any more. I knew it, with a certain feeling that was
not displeasure. Was it pride? Was it anything more than my pleasure
in all pretty things? I thought it was something more. And I
determined that I would not put on any of them till school was broken
up. If it _was_ pride, I was ashamed of it. But besides French
dresses, my aunt brought me a better thing; a promise from my father.
"He said I was to tell you, Daisy my dear,--and I hope you will be a
good child and take it as you ought--but dear me! how she is growing,"
said Mrs. Gary, turning to Mme. Ricard; "I cannot talk about Daisy as
a 'child' much longer. She's tall."
"Not too tall," said madame.
"No, but she is going to be tall. She has a right; her mother is tall,
and her father. Daisy, my dear, I do believe you are going to look
like your mother. You'll be very handsome if you do. And yet, you look
different----"
"Miss Randolph will not shame anybody belonging to her," said Mme.
Ricard, graciously.
"Well, I suppose not," said my aunt. "I was going to tell you what
your father said, Daisy. He said--you know it takes a long while to
get to China and back, and if it does him good he will stay a little
while there; and then there's the return voyage, and there may be
delays; so altogether it was impossible to say exactly how long he and
your mother will be gone. I mean, it was impossible to know certainly
that they would be able to come home by next summer; indeed I doubt if
your father ever does come home."
I waited in silence.
"So altogether," my aunt went on, turning for a moment to Mme. Ricard,
"there was a doubt about it; and your father said, he charged me to
tell Daisy, that if she will make herself contented--that is,
supposing they cannot come home next year, you know--if she will make
herself happy and be patient and bear one or two years more, and stay
at school and do the best she can, _then_, the year after next or the
next year he will send for you, your father says, _unless_ they come
home themselves--they will send for you; and then, your father says,
he will give you any request you like to make of him. Ask anything you
can think of, that you would like best, and he will do it or get it,
whatever it is. He didn't say like King Herod, 'to the half of his
kingdom,' but I suppose he meant that. And meanwhile, you know you
have a guardian now, Daisy, and there is no use for me in your
affairs; and having conveyed to you your mother's gifts and your
father's promises, I suppose there is nothing further for me to do to
you."
I was silent yet, thinking. Two years more would be a dear purchase of
any pleasure that might come after. Two years! And four were gone
already. It seemed impossible to wait or to bear it. I heard no more
of what my aunt was saying, till she turned to me again and asked,
"Where are you going to pass the vacation?"
I did not know, for Mrs. Sandford was obliged to be with her sister
still, so that I could not go to Melbourne.
"Well, if your new guardian thinks well of it--you can consult him if
it is necessary--and if he does not object, you can be with me if you
like. Preston has leave of absence this summer, I believe; and he will
be with us."
It was in effect arranged so. My aunt took me about the country from
one watering place to another; from Saratoga to the White Mountains;
and Preston's being with us made it a gay time. Preston had been for
two years at West Point; he was grown and improved everybody said; but
to me he was just the same. If anything, _not_ improved; the old grace
and graciousness of his manner was edged with an occasional hardness
or abruptness which did not use to belong to him, and which I did not
understand. There seemed to be a latent cause of irritation somewhere.
However, my summer went off smoothly enough. September brought me back
to Mme. Ricard's, and in view of Miss Cardigan's late roses and
budding chrysanthemums. I was not sorry. I had set my heart on doing
as much as could be done in these next two years, if two they must be.
I was the first in my room; but before the end of the day they all
came pouring in; the two older and the two younger girls. "Here's
somebody already," exclaimed Miss Macy as she saw me. "Why, Daisy
Randolph! is it possible that's you? Is it Daisy Randolph? What have
you done to yourself? How you _have_ improved!"
"She is very much improved," said Miss Bentley more soberly.
"She has been learning the fashions," said Miss Lansing, her bright
eyes dancing as good-humouredly as ever. "Daisy, now when your hair
gets long you'll look quite nice. That frock is made very well."
"She is changed," said Miss St. Clair, with a look I could not quite
make out.
"No," I said; "I hope I am not changed."
"Your dress is," said St. Clair.
I thought of Dr. Sandford's "_L'habit, c'est l'homme_". "My mother had
this dress made," I said; "and I ordered the other one; that is all
the difference."
"You're on the right side of the difference, then," said Miss St.
Clair.
"Has your mother come back, Daisy?" Miss Lansing asked.
"Not yet. She sent me this from Paris."
"It's very pretty!" she said, with, I saw, an increase of admiration;
but St. Clair gave me another strange look. "How much prettier Paris
things are than American!" Lansing went on. "I wish I could have all
my dresses from Paris. Why, Daisy, you've grown handsome."
"Nonsense!" said Miss Macy; "she always was, only you didn't see it."
"Style is more than a face," said Miss St. Clair cavalierly. Somehow I
felt that this little lady was not in a good mood awards me. I boded
mischief; for being nearly of an age, we were together in most of our
classes, studied the same things, and recited at the same times. There
was an opportunity for clashing.
They soon ran off, all four, to see their friends and acquaintances
and learn the news of the school. I was left alone, making my
arrangement of clothes and things in my drawer and my corner of the
closet; and I found that some disturbance, in those few moments, had
quite disarranged the thoughts of my heart. They were peaceful enough
before. There was some confusion now. I could not at first tell what
was uppermost; only that St. Clair's words were those that most
returned to me. "She has changed." _Had_ I changed? or was I going to
change? was I going to enter the lists of fashion with my young
companions, and try who would win the race? No doubt my mother could
dress me better than almost any of their mothers could dress them;
what then? would this be a triumph? or was this the sort of name and
notoriety that became and befitted a servant of Jesus? I could not
help my dresses being pretty; no, but I could help making much display
of them. I could wear my own school plaid when the weather grew
cooler; and one or two others of my wardrobe were all I need show.
"Style is more than a face." No doubt. What _then?_ Did I want style
and a face too? Was I wishing to confound St. Clair? Was I escaping
already from that bond and a mark of a Christian--"The world knoweth
us not?" I was startled and afraid. I fell down on my knees by the
side of my bed, and tried to look at the matter as God looked at it.
And the Daisy I thought he would be pleased with, was one who ran no
race for worldly supremacy. I resolved she should not. The praise of
God, I thought, was far better than the praise of men.
My mind was quite made up when I rose from my knees; but I looked
forward to a less quiet school term than the last had been. Something
told me that the rest of the girls would take me up now, for good and
for evil. My Paris dress set me in a new position, no longer beneath
their notice. I was an object of attention. Even that first evening I
felt the difference.
"Daisy, when is your mother coming home?" "Oh, she is gone to China;
Daisy's mother is gone to China!"--"She'll bring you lots of queer
things, won't she?"--"What a sweet dress!"--"_That_ didn't come from
China?"--"Daisy, who's head in mathematics, you or St. Clair? I hope
you will get before her!"
"Why?" I ventured to ask.
"Oh, you're the best of the two; everybody knows that. But St. Clair
is smart, isn't she?"
"She thinks she is," answered another speaker; "she believes she's at
the tip-top of creation; but she never had such a pretty dress on as