"
"What was Daisy desiring to do, doctor?"
"Carry some comfort to this forlorn thing, I believe; whom nobody else
thinks of comforting."
"Do you know what shape the comfort was to take?"
"I think," said the doctor,--"I am not quite sure, but I think, it was a
rose bush."
Mr. Randolph looked at his wife and straightened himself up to a sitting
posture.
"And what hindered her, Dr. Sandford?"
"I think, some understanding that she had not liberty to go on."
"Very proper in Daisy," said Mrs. Randolph.
"That is your child who is wanting in docility," remarked Mr. Randolph.
"She might have remembered my orders before she got so far,"--said the
lady.
"I wish you would change the orders," said Dr. Sandford boldly.
"Not even to oblige you, doctor," said Mrs. Randolph. "Daisy has an idea
that the companions who are not fit for her are precisely the ones whom
she should cultivate."
"I think Daisy would state the question differently, however," Mr.
Randolph remarked.
"She has a tinge of the wildest fanaticism," Mrs. Randolph went on,
dropping her work and facing the doctor. "Wherever there are rags and
dirt, there, by force of contrast, Daisy thinks it is her business to
go. This is a miserable place, I suppose, that she was aiming for this
afternoon--is it not?"
"Very miserable. But the point is, to visit it would have made Daisy
happy."
"It is sheer fanaticism!" said Mrs. Randolph. "I cannot let her
encourage it. If I did, she would not be fit for anything by and by.
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