CHAPTER IX.
After tea the doctor took Daisy in his gig and drove her home. The drive
was unmarked by a single thing; except that just as they were passing
the cripple's house Daisy broke silence and asked,
"Is that woman--Molly Skelton--is she very poor, Dr. Sandford?"
"If to live on charity be poor. I do not suppose the neighbours let her
suffer."
"Is she cross to everybody, Dr. Sandford?"
"She has the name of it, I believe, Daisy. I really do not remember
whether she was cross to me or not."
"Then you know her?"
"Yes. I know everybody."
The family at Melbourne were found just taking their late tea as the
doctor and Daisy entered. They were met with complaints of the heat;
though Daisy thought the drawing room was exceeding pleasant, the air
came in at the long windows with such gentle freshness from the river.
The doctor took a cup of tea and declared the day was excellent if you
only rode fifty miles through the heat of it.
"Coolness is coolness, after that," he said.
Daisy sat in a corner and wondered at the people. Hot? and suffocating?
she had no recollection of any such thing all day. How delicious it had
been in that green dell under the walnut tree, with the grey squirrels!
"How has it been with you, Daisy?" said her aunt at last.
"Nice, aunt Gary."
Two or three people smiled; Daisy's favourite word came out with such a
dulcet tone of a smooth and clear spirit. It was a syrup drop of
sweetness in the midst of flat and acid qualities.
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