A Little Girl in Old Pittsburg

CHAPTER	PAGE
I	A Little Girl	1
II	A Joyful Return	19
III	Welcome	39
IV	Old Pittsburg	60
V	How the World Widened	81
VI	A New Friend	103
VII	Daffodil's New World	120
VIII	In Silk Attire	141
IX	With the Eyes of Youth	152
X	The Passing of the Old	169
XI	The Woof of Daily Things	189
XII	Spinning with Various Threads	209
XIII	The Sweetness of Love	227
XIV	Sorrow's Crown of Sorrow	242
XV	Another Flitting	261
XVI	Saint Martin's Summer	284
XVII	Oh, Which is Love?	305
XVIII	A Revelation	320

"Oh, what is it, grandad! Why is Kirsty ringing two bells and oh, what is he saying?"

Grandfather Carrick had come out of his cottage and stood in the small yard place that a young oak had nearly filled with a carpet of leaves. He was a medium-sized man with reddish hair streaked with white, and a spare reddish beard, rather ragged, bright blue eyes and a nose retroussé at the best, but in moments of temper or disdain it turned almost upside down, as now.

"What is he sayin'. Well, it's a dirty black lee! Lord Cornwallis isn't the man to give in to a rabble of tatterdemalions with not a shoe to their feet an' hardly a rag to their back! By the beard of St. Patrick they're all rags!" and he gave an insolent laugh! "It's a black lee, I tell you!"

He turned and went in the door with a derisive snort. Daffodil stood irresolute. Kirsty was still ringing his two bells and now people were coming out to question. The street was a rather winding lane with the houses set any way, and very primitive they were, built of logs, some of them filled in with rude mortar and thatched with straw.

Then Nelly Mullin came flying along, a bright, dark-haired, rosy-cheeked woman, with a shawl about her shoulders. She caught up the child and kissed her rapturously.

"Oh, isn't it full grand!" she cried. "Cornwallis has surrendered to General Washington! Our folks caught him in a trap. An' now the men folks will come home, my man an' your father, Dilly. Thank the Saints there wasna a big battle. Rin tell your mither!"

"But grandad said it was a—a lee!" and the child gave a questioning look.

"Lie indeed!" she laughed merrily. "They wouldna be sending all over the country such blessed news if it was na true. Clear from Yorktown an' their Cornwallis was the biggest man England could send, a rale Lord beside. Rin honey, I must go to my sisters."

The little girl walked rather slowly instead, much perturbed in her mind. The Duvernay place joined the Carrick place and at present they were mostly ranged round the Fort. That was much smaller, but better kept and there were even some late hardy flowers in bloom.

"What's all the noise, Posy?" asked Grandfather Duvernay. He was an old, old man, a bright little Frenchman with snowy white hair, but bright dark eyes. He was a good deal wrinkled as became a great-grandfather, and he sat in a high-backed chair at one corner of the wide stone chimney that was all built in the room. There was a fine log fire and Grandmother Bradin was stirring a savory mass of herbs. The real grandfather was out in the barn, looking after the stock.

"It was Kirsty ringing two bells. Cornwallis is taken."

"No!" The little man sprang up and clasped his hands. "You are sure you heard straight! It wasn't Washington?"

"I'm quite sure. And Nelly Mullin said 'run and tell your mother, your father'll be coming home.'"

"Thank the good God." He dropped down in the chair again and closed his eyes, bent his head reverently and prayed.

"Your mother's asleep now. She's had a pretty good night. Run out and tell gran."

Grandfather Bradin kissed his little girl, though he was almost afraid to believe the good news. Three years Bernard Carrick had been following the fortunes of war and many a dark day had intervened.

"Oh, that won't end the war. There's Charleston and New York. But Cornwallis! I must go out and find where the news came from."

"Grandad don't believe it!" There was still a look of doubt in her eyes.

Bradin laughed. "I d' know as he'd believe it if he saw the articles of peace signed. He'll stick to King George till he's laid in his coffin. There, I've finished mending the steps and I'll slip on my coat and go."

"I couldn't go with you?" wistfully.

"No, dear. I'll run all about and get the surest news. I s'pose it came to the Fort, but maybe by the South road."

He took the child's hand and they went into the house. The streets were all astir. Grandfather stood by the window looking out, but he turned and smiled and suddenly broke out in his native French. His face then had the prettiness of enthusiastic old age.

"We'll shake hands on it," said Bradin. "I'm going out to see. There couldn't be a better word."

The autumnal air was chilly and he wrapped his old friese cloak around him.

"Mother's awake now," said Mrs. Bradin. "You may go in and see her."

The door was wide open now. It was as large as the living room, but divided by a curtain swung across, now pushed aside partly. There was a bed in each corner. A light stand by the head of the bed, a chest of drawers, a brass bound trunk and two chairs completed the furnishing of this part. The yellow walls gave it a sort of cheerful, almost sunshiny look, and the curtain at the window with its hand-made lace was snowy white. The painted floor had a rug through the centre that had come from some foreign loom. The bedstead had high slender carved posts, but was without a canopy.

A woman still young and comely as to feature lay there. She was thin, which made the eyes seem larger and darker. The brown hair had a certain duskiness and was a curly fringe about the forehead. She smiled up at the little girl, who leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

"You are better, mother dear," she said as she seated herself with a little spring on the side of the bed. "But you said so yesterday. When will it be real, so you can get up and go out?" and a touch of perplexity crossed the child's face.

"Gra'mere thinks I may sit up a little while this afternoon. I had no fever yesterday nor last night."

"Oh, mother, I was to tell you that Cornwallis has—it's a long word that has slipped out of my mind. Nelly Mullin said her husband would come home and my father. Kirsty Boyle rang two bells——"

"Oh, what was it? Go and ask grandfather, child," and the mother half rose in her eagerness.

"It was 'sur-ren-dered' with his army. Father has gone to see. And then the war will end."

"Oh, thank heaven, the good God, and all the saints, for I think they must have interceded. They must be glad when dreadful wars come to an end."

She laid her head back on the pillow and the tears fringed her dark lashes.

The child was thinking, puzzling over something. Then she said suddenly, "What is my father like? I seem to remember just a little—that he carried me about in his arms and that we all cried a good deal."

"It was three years and more ago. He loved us very much. But he felt the country needed him. And the good Allfather has kept him safe. He has never been wounded or taken prisoner, and if he comes back to us——"

"But what is surrendered?"

"Why, the British army has given up. And Lord Cornwallis is a great man. England, I believe, thought he could conquer the Colonies. Oh, Daffodil, you are too little to understand;" in a sort of helpless fashion.

"He isn't like grandad then. Grandad wants England to beat."

"No, he isn't much like grandad. And yet dear grandad has been very good to us. Of course he was desperately angry that your father should go for a soldier. Oh, if he comes home safe!"

"Dilly," said gran'mere, pausing at the door with a piece of yellow pumpkin in her hand which she was peeling, "you must come away now. You have talked enough to your mother and she must rest."

The child slipped down and kissed the pale cheek again, then came out in the living-room and looked around. The cat sat washing her face and at every dab the paw went nearer her ear.

"You shan't, Judy! We don't want rain, do we, grandfather?" She caught up the cat in her arms, but not before pussy had washed over one ear.

Grandfather laughed. "Well, it does make it rain when she washes over her ear," the little girl said with a very positive air. "It did on Sunday."

"And I guess pussy washes over her ear every day in the week."

"It's saved up then for the big storms;" with a triumphant air.

"Get the board and let's have a game. You're so smart I feel it in my bones that you will beat."

She put Judy down very gently, but the cat switched her tail around and wondered why. She brought out the board that was marked like "Tit tat toe," and a box that she rattled laughingly. Pussy came when they had adjusted it on their knees and put two white paws on it, preparatory to a jump.

"Oh, Judy, I can't have you now. Come round and sit by the fire."

Judy went round to the back of Dilly's chair and washed over both ears in a very indignant manner.

The play was Fox and Geese. There was one red grain of corn for the fox and all the geese were white. One block at the side was left vacant. If you could pen the fox in there without losing a goose or at the most two or three, you were the winner. But if once you let the fox out the geese had to fly for their lives. Grandfather often let the little girl beat.

He was very fond of her, and he was a sweet-natured old man who liked to bestow what pleasure he could. Just now he was feeling impatient for the news and wanted to pass away the time.

Dilly was quite shrewd, too, for a little girl not yet seven. She considered now and moved a far off goose, and the fox knew that was sour grapes.

"Oh, you're a sharp one!" exclaimed grandfather. "I'll have to mind how I doze on this bout."

But alas! On the next move she let him in a little way, then she fenced him out again, and lost one goose repairing her defences. But it wasn't a bad move. The great art was to keep one goose behind another for protection. He couldn't jump over but one at a time.

She beat grandfather, who pretended to be quite put out about it and said she'd do for an army general. Grandmother was making a pumpkin pudding with milk and eggs and sugar and stick-cinnamon, which was quite a luxury. Then she poured it into an iron pan that stood upon little feet, drew out a bed of coal, and plumped it down. The cover had a rim around the top, and she placed some coals on the top of this. She baked her bread in it, too. Stoves were great luxuries and costly. Then she laid some potatoes in the hot ashes and hung a kettle of turnips on the crane.

Grandfather and the little girl had another game and she was the fox this time and lost, getting penned up.

"Grandfather," she said sagely, "if you know the good early moves and don't make any mistake, you're sure to win."

"I believe that is so. You're getting a stock of wisdom, Dilly. Oh, won't your father be surprised when he comes home. You were a mere baby when he went away."

She was an oddly pretty child. Her hair was really yellow, soft and curly, then her eyes were of so dark a blue that you often thought them black. The eyebrows and lashes were dark, the nose rather piquant, the mouth sweet and rosy, curved, with dimples in the corners. But in those days no one thought much about beauty in children.

The door was flung open.

"Ugh!" ejaculated Gran Bradin. "It's fairly wintry. Fire feels good! The news is just glorious! They headed off Cornwallis after having destroyed their fortifications and dismantled their cannon. The British works were so in ruins they tried escape. One section of troops crossed over to Glous'ter Point, but a storm set in and dispersed the boats. There was nothing left but surrender. So the great army and the great general who were to give us the finishing stroke, handed in their capitulation to General Washington. There are between seven and eight thousand prisoners and all the shipping in the harbor. Grandfather, you may be proud. We had, it is thought, seven thousand French troops, with Count De Rochambeau, and Count De Grasse."

He reached over and wrung grandfather's slim white hand with its tracery of blue veins. Then he kissed his wife. "They've been good friends to us. We'll never forget that!"

"And the war is over?"

"Not exactly that. We've yet to dislodge them from various places. But they think now England will be willing to treat. And we'll have a country of our own! Well, it was three weeks ago."

There were no telegraphs, and only the more important places had post roads. Pittsburg was quite out of the way. It had no dreams of grandeur in those days, and about its only claim to eminence was Braddock's defeat.

"Lang brought some copies of the Philadelphia Gazette, but you couldn't get near one, they were rushed off so. But we'll hear it all in a few days. Too much good news might puff us up with vain glory. We may look for letters any day. Such a splendid victory!"

Grandfather was wiping the tears from his eyes. Marc Bradin went in to comfort his daughter, though he could hardly forbear smiling with a sense of inward amusement as he thought of Sandy Carrick, who had as good as disowned his son for joining the Colonial army. He'd be glad enough to have him back again. Though he had been rather disgruntled at his marrying Barbe Bradin because she had French blood in her veins, as if the Irish Bradin could not in some degree counteract that!

Sandy Carrick had been in the sore battle of Braddock's defeat. But after all the cowardly French had thought retreat the better part of valor and left the Fort that had been partly burned, left that section as well, and the government had erected the new Fort Pitt. He insisted that the French had been really driven out. They certainly had been checked in their advance to the Mississippi.

Pittsburg was a conglomerate in these early days. Welsh, Irish, and English had contributed to its then small population of the few hundreds whose history and beginning were like so many other emigrants. The houses were ranged largely about the Fort for protection from the Indians. There were small crooked lanes, a few dignified by-streets, Penn Street, Duquesne way, Water and Ferry streets. Colonel George Morgan had built a double-hewn log house of considerable dimensions, the first house in the settlement to have a shingle roof. Though the "Manor of Pittsburg" had been surveyed and Fort Pitt had been abandoned by the British under orders of General Gage and occupied by Virginia troops under Captain John Neville.

There were some French residents, some Acadians as well, and a few Virginians who were mostly refugees. The houses were of very primitive construction, generally built of logs, but made comfortable on the inside. The emigrants had brought their industries with them. The women spun and knit, there were several rude looms, but they depended largely on Philadelphia for supplies.

Pierre Duvernay had fled to Ireland in one of the Huguenot persecutions, but more fortunate than many, he had been able to take some of his worldly possessions. Here his only daughter had married Marc Bradin, his only son had died, and his wife had followed. Broken-hearted he had accompanied his daughter and son-in-law to the new Colonies. They had spent a few years in Virginia, then with some French friends had come to Pittsburg and bought a large holding, which seemed at the time a misadventure, and so they had built in nearer to the Fort. Here pretty Barbe Bradin had grown up and married Bernard Carrick, their neighbor's son, but they had not let the hospitable Bradin home. Here Daffodil had been born, and the French and Irish blended again.

"What made you call me Daffodil?" the child said one day to her mother. "You were named after your mother and gran'mere after hers, and you should have called me Barbe."

"It would have made no end of confusion. You see it does with great-grandfather. And when you were born it was lovely sunshiny weather and the daffodils were in bloom with their tender gold. Then you had such a funny fuzzy yellow head. I loved the Daffodils so. They come so early and look so cheerful, and you were such a cheerful baby, always ready to smile."

"Do you suppose my hair will always stay yellow?"

"Oh, no. It will grow darker."

"Like yours?"

"Well, perhaps not quite as dark. I like it. You are my spring. If I were in any sorrow, your brightness would comfort me."

Then the sorrow came. The young husband felt it his duty to join the struggling army and fight for his country. It was in doubtful times.

This queer, rural, primitive settlement knew little about the great causes. Since the new fort had been built and the French repulsed, absolutely driven out of their strongholds, there had been only the infrequent Indian encounters to rouse them. The stern resolves, the mighty enthusiasm of the Eastern Colonies had not inspired them. Even the Declaration of Independence, while it had stirred up their alien and contradictory blood, had not evoked the sturdy patriotism of the larger towns having so much more at stake. They added to their flocks and herds, they hunted game and wild animals, and on the whole enjoyed their rural life.

Sandy Carrick had never known which side to affiliate with the most strongly. There was the brave old Scottish strain that his mother had handed down in many a romantic tale, there was the Irish of his father that had come down almost from royalty itself, from the famous Dukes that had once divided Ireland between them. Why the Carricks had espoused the English side he could not have told. He was glad to come to the new countries. And when, after being a widower for several years, he married pretty buxom widow Boyle, he was well satisfied with his place in life.

He had been in the fateful encounter at Braddock's defeat at his first introduction to the country. The French were well enough in Canada, which seemed not very far from the North Pole, and a land of eternal snow, but when they came farther down with their forts and their claims it was time to drive them out, and nothing gave him greater satisfaction than to think they were mostly out.

He took a great fancy to his next-door neighbor, Marc Bradin, but he fought shy of the old black-eyed Frenchman. Pierre Duvernay had passed through too many vicissitudes and experiences to believe that any one party had all the right; then, too, he was a sweet-natured old man, thinking often of the time when he should rejoin friends and relatives, not a few of whom had died for their faith.

Sandy had not liked his son's marriage with Barbe Bradin, who certainly was more French than Irish, but she had a winsome brightness and vivacity, and indulged in many a laughing tilt with her father-in-law. Nora Boyle openly favored them all. They spun and knit and made lace and wove rugs of rags and compared cookery, and she and Mrs. Bradin were wildly happy over Daffodil.

"If 't had been a boy now!" exclaimed Sandy. "A gal's good for naught when it comes to handin' down the name. Though if its hair'll turn out red, an 't looks so now, it may flout t'other blood," putting a strong expletive to it.

"Don't now, Sandy!" said his wife's coaxing voice. "There's sorts and kinds in the world. The good Lord didn't mean us all to be alike or he'd made 'em so to start with."

"Did make 'em so, woman. There was only two of 'em!"

"Well, some others came from somewhere. And Cain went off an got himself a wife. An' when you think of the baby there's good three parts Irish to the one French. An' I'm sure no one keeps a tidier house, an' the little old man sittin' by the chimney corner hurts no one. And it's handy to have a neebur to play at cards."

When there came an urgent call for men to join what seemed almost a lost cause Bernard Carrick went to Philadelphia with perhaps twenty other recruits, to the sorrow of his wife and the anger of his father.

"For they can't win, the blunderin' fules! D'y spose King George's goin' to let a gran' country like this slip out of his fingers. Barbery, if you were half a woman you'd 'a' held onto him if y'd had to spit on yer han's to do it. You'll never see him agen, an' it comforts me for the loss of my son that you've lost your husband. Ye can git anither one, but I'll have no more sons to comfort me in my old age."

Poor Barbe was wild with grief, yet somehow Bernard's sense of duty to his country had inspired her, and then she had her little darling, her mother, and father, and grandfather, who had not outlived a certain heroic strain if his blood had come through French channels.

The people of Pittsburg had no tea to throw overboard. The Stamp Act bore lightly on them. They could brew good beer, they could distil whiskey and make passable wine. Fish and game were in abundance, the fields laughed with riotous harvests, so what if a few did go to war?

Sandy relented after a little and they took up the evenings of card-playing, with the cider or beer and doughnuts, or a brittle kind of spice cake that Mrs. Bradin could make in perfection. They had arguments, to be sure: Marc Bradin was on the side of the Colonies, and he had taken pains to keep informed of the causes of disaffection. It was going to be a big country and could govern itself since it must know better what was needed than a king thousands of miles away!

Sandy held his spite against the French sufficiently in abeyance to learn to play piquet with great-grandfather. It interested him wonderfully, and since two could play a game the women could knit and sew and gossip. News came infrequently. Bradin often went to the Fort to hear. If there were reverses, he held his peace in a cheerful sort of way—if victories, there was rejoicing among themselves. For they tried not to ruffle Sandy Carrick unnecessarily.

Daffodil went often to see grandad and Norry, as they called the merry-hearted second wife, who nearly always had some tidbit for her. And grandad took her on journeys sitting in front of him on an improvised pillion, teaching her to sit astride and buckling a strap around both bodies.

"For you'll have to be my boy, Dilly. My other boy'll never come back to us."

"Where will he go?" in her wondering tone.

"The Lord only knows, child."

"It is so good to get out among you all," Barbe Carrick said, as she was pillowed up in a big high-backed chair and wrapped in a soft gray blanket. Her hair was gathered in a pretty white cap with a ruffle of lace about the edge, framing in her rather thin face. "So good! And the good news! Why, I feel almost well."

It had been a slow autumnal fever, never very serious, but wearing. Mrs. Bradin knew the use of many herbs and was considered as good as a doctor by most of the settlers.

The room would have made a fine "Interior," if there had been a Dutch artist at hand. It was of good dimensions, or the great fireplace would have dwarfed it. Marc Bradin was a handy man, as not a few were in those days when new settlers could not encumber themselves with much furniture. There were some of the old French belongings, a sort of escritoire that had drawers below and shelves above and was in two pieces. But the tables and chairs and the corner cupboard were of his fashioning. There was china, really beautiful pewter ware, some pieces of hammered brass, candlesticks, and one curious lamp. The rafters were dark with age and smoke, but they were not ornamented with flitches of bacon, for there was a smoke-house out one side.

The chairs would pass for modern Mission furniture. A few had rockers, notably that in which the little girl sat, with Judy on her lap, and the cat almost covered her. Grandfather was in his accustomed place. There was a small table beside him on which were his old French Bible, a book of devotion, and a volume or two of poems, and a tall candlestick with two branches. Gran'mere was doing some white embroidery, a frock for the little girl's next summer's wear. Mrs. Bradin had been settling her daughter and now stood undecided as to her next duty.

"Has father gone out again?" Barbe asked.

"Yes, to the Fort—to see if he can't get one of the papers."

"It's wonderful news!" and the invalid drew a long breath of delight. "But it isn't real peace yet."

"Oh, no, I do believe it is the beginning, though," said her mother.

"I wish the sun would shine. It ought to;" and Barbe gave a wan half smile.

"But it isn't going to," announced Daffodil confidently. "And it is going to rain."

Grandfather laughed.

"Why, Dilly?"

"Because." The child colored. "Oh, you will see."

There was a tap at the door and then it opened. Norah Carrick dropped the shawl she had thrown over her head. A still pretty, heartsome-looking woman, with a merry face bright with roses, laughing blue eyes, and dark hair.

"It's good for sore eyes to see you up, Barbe. I hope we'll have some fine weather to brace up one. An'—an' 'twas good news you heard the morn." Then she gave a funny, rippling laugh.

"But he'll be glad to have Bernard come back," Barbe exclaimed resentfully.

"Ah, that he will! Ye mustna mind him child, if he's cranky for a bit. He's been that set about England winning the game that you'd take him for wan of the high dukes that sit in state and tell what shall be done. I've been for the country all along. It runs in my mind that Ireland owes the king a gredge. She's been a cross-grained stepmother, say your best. An' why couldn't she let us go on an' prosper! We'd been willin' enough to work for her part of the time. An' it's not such an easy thing to lave your own bit of a home and come over here in these wilds, an' hew down trees for your houses and clear land for the corn, an' fight Indians. So I'm wishin' the country to win. But Sandy's carryin' the black cat round on his back to-day, an' it makes me laugh, too. He's that smart when he gets a little riled up, and he's husked corn to-day as if he was keepin' time with Nickey Nick's fiddle."

"What makes the black cat stay on his back?" asked Daffodil, stroking her own pussy softly.

"Ah, that's just a say so, Dilly darlin', for a spell of gettin' out of temper when there's no need. But he made a good dinner. I had just the stew he liked, an' a Donegal puddin' that come down from my great-grandmother. An', Barbe, you begin to look like crawlin' about again an' not so washed out. The good news should make a warm streak all through you."

"Oh, I'm much better. If it will come off nice an' warm——"

"We'll have a storm first. And is there any more news?"

She had been taking some work out of a bag after she had nodded to gran'mere and shaken hands with great-grandfather. Now she settled herself and began to sew. She was never idle. Sandy Carrick had the smartest wife anywhere about and few women would have minded his queer quips so little.

Then the door opened and Marc Bradin entered, thrusting out a newspaper.

"I've been waiting my turn and have promised to have it back in half an hour, but I'll not count the coming and going," laughing. "And it's news worth waiting for. It's all true and more, too. And if we want a King or an Emperor, General Washington's the man. Now I'll read, since that's the cheapest way, as you can all hear at once."

He dropped into a chair and threw his old cap on the floor. Bradin was an excellent reader. Yes, it was glorious news. A big battle averted and soldiers disabled by honor rather than wounds. A vivid description of what had led up to the surrender and the conditions, the enthusiasm and the predictions that at last victory was achieved for the Colonies. And although numerous points were still held by the English, it would be difficult to rouse enthusiasm after this crushing blow.

"Time's up," said the reader. "But you have all the real gist of the matter. Norah, how's Sandy?"

Norah gave a laugh and a shrug of the shoulders.

"Oh, he'll come round. I can't see, with all the Scotch an' Irish in him, why he must be shoutin' for King George just because he happened to fight on that side years ago. An' it was under Washington, too, an' people do say if Braddock hadn't been so high an' mighty, and taken some of the young man's counsel, there wouldna have been such an awful defeat."

"I'll come right back, jinky! It begins to rain."

Dilly looked up in triumph. "I told you so," she said, "and you just laughed, grandfather. Now you see Judy knew."

She gave Judy an extra hug and squeezed a faint mew out of her.

"Judy is a wise cat," admitted grandfather.

"And I must run home an' get a supper that'll be a soothin' poultice to the inside of the man," laughed Norah. "I'm glad I know about how things stand, so my heart will be light. An' we will have Bernard home safe and sound, never you fear, so, Barbe, get well to welcome him. I'm cooking chicken to-morrow an' I'll send over broth an' a bit of the breast. Run over to-morrow, little one. Grandad'll be all right."

Barbe was tired and went to bed. Dilly moved over by grandfather and begged for a story. He and Norah had a packful of them. It grew darker and rained, with a sort of rushing wind.

When Dilly grew older and began to understand what real living was, it seemed as if this was her actual induction into it. She had run about and played, listened to stories and songs, gravitated between the two houses, ridden with grandad, who was always a little jealous that most of her relatives should be on the French side. She could shut her eyes and hear Kirsty's raucous voice and the two bells he was ringing and see grandad's upturned nose and his derisive tone. She awoke to the fact that she really had a father.

Grandad used to come over in the evening and play piquet with old grandfather. It was a game two could enjoy, and the women folk were no great hands at card-playing. Now and then, when Norah was not too busy, they had a friendly, social game. It rained two days and then cleared up in the glory of perfect autumn weather. Nothing came to counteract the good tidings. Grandad came for Daffodil to take a ride with him, and that evening he sauntered in and had a game of piquet and beat. It always delighted him. It was fighting the French over again.

Barbe improved rapidly now. People were quite apt to have what was called a run of fever in the autumn at the change of the seasons, and there were some excellent home-brewed remedies and tonics that answered, if the case was not too severe.

Dilly and her mother talked a great deal about the return of the husband and father.

"Is he like grandad?" she inquired with a little contraction of the brows.

"Oh, not much. He was called a handsome young fellow. Your eyes are like his, and he had such a brilliant color then," sighing a little and wondering if the hardships had made him old before his time.

"And—and his nose?" hesitatingly.

Barbe laughed. "It isn't short like grandad's. His mother was a handsome woman."

"It's queer," said the child reflectively, "that you can have so many grand relatives and only one father. And only one gran'mere. For Norry isn't real, is she, since she isn't father's mother. And how many wives can one have?"

"Only one at a time. It's quite a puzzle to little folks. It was to me."

Daffodil looked at her mother with wondering eyes and said thoughtfully, "Were you truly little like me? And did you like grandad? Did he take you out on his big horse?"

"We were living in Virginia then. Great-grandfather and great-grandmother were living there—she was alive then. And when she died gran'mere and gran came out here. I was about eight. And we didn't like it here. The children were so different."

"It is all very queer," said Dilly. "You are little, and then you grow, and—and you get married. Will I be married? Must you find some one——"

"Oh, Dilly, I think some one will find you;" and her mother laughed. "You will have to grow up and be—well, eighteen, I think, almost a dozen years before you need to think about it."

"I'm very glad," she said soberly.

She did not like things that puzzled her. The war was another. What had it been about? Grandad was sure the English were right, and great-grandfather was glad they were going to be beaten.

She used to dream of her father, and watch out for him. For some of the companies were furloughed, his among them. And now he was Captain Carrick.

Christmas came. There was not much made of it here, as there had been in Virginia, no gift-giving, but family dinners that often ended in a regular carouse, sometimes a fight. For Pittsburg had not reached any high point of refinement, and was such a conglomerate that they could hardly be expected to agree on all points.

The little girl lost interest presently in watching for her father, and half believed he was not coming. She was very fond of grandad, and Norry, and the wonderful stories she heard about fairies and "little folk," who came to your house at night, and did wonderful things—sometimes spun the whole night long, and at others did bits of mischief. This was when you had offended them some way.

She liked the Leprecawn so much. He was a fairy shoemaker, and when all was still in the night you sometimes heard him. "Tip tap, rip rap, Tick a tack too!" And the little Eily, who wished so for red shoes, but her folks were too poor to buy them. So she was to find six four-leaf clovers, and lay them on the doorstep, which she did.

"What a queer noise there was in the night," said the mother. "It was like this, 'Tip tap, rip rap,'"

"Sho!" said the father, "it was the swallows in the chimney."

Eily held her peace, but she put four-leafed clovers again on the doorstep, and tried to keep awake, so she could hear the little shoemaker.

"I'll clear them swallows out of the chimney, they disturb me so," declared the father, and he got a long pole and scraped down several nests. But the next night the sound came again, and the mother began to feel afeared. But when Eily went downstairs there was a pair of little red shoes standing in the corner, and Eily caught them up and kissed them, she was so full of joy. Then her mother said, "The Leprecawn has been here. And, Eily, you must never wear them out of doors at the full of the moon, or you'll be carried off."

"Was she ever, do you think, Norry?"

"Oh, her mother'd be very careful. For if you go to fairyland, you'll have to stay seven years."

"I shouldn't like that," subjoined Dilly. "But I would like the red shoes. And if I could find some four-leaf clovers——"

"You can't in winter."

"Well—next summer."

"Maybe grandad can find you some red leather, and lame Pete can make them."

"But I rather have the fairy shoemaker, with his 'tip tap, rip rap';" laughing.

"Don't minch about him. Here's a nice chunk of cake."

Dilly had cake enough to spoil a modern child's digestion. But no one understood hygiene in those days, and kept well.

There were no schools for little girls to go to. But a queer old fellow, who lived by himself, taught the boys, and tried to thrash some knowledge in their brains. It was considered the best method.

Dilly's mother taught her to read English, and great-grandfather inducted her into French. Gran'mere talked French to the old man. Every morning she brushed his hair and tied it in a queue with a black ribbon. He wore a ruffled shirt front, and lace ruffles at his wrist; knee breeches, silk stockings, and low shoes with great buckles.

Dilly learned to sew a little as well. But early industry was not held in as high esteem as in the Eastern Colonies. There was plenty of spinning and knitting. Fashions did not change much in the way of dress, so you could go on with your clothes until they were worn out. The nicest goods were imported, but there was a kind of flannelly cloth for winter wear, that was dyed various colors, mostly blue and copperas, which made a kind of yellow.

So the winter went on, and in February there came a great thaw. Oh, how the river swelled, and rushed on to the Ohio. It was very warm. And one day Daffodil sat on the great stone doorstep, holding the cat, and munching a piece of cake. Judy ate a few crumbs, but she did not care much for it.

"There's a peddler," said Dilly to Judy. "He has a big pack on his back, and he walks with a cane, as if he was tired. And there's something hanging to his waist, and a queer cap. He seems looking—why, he's coming here. Gran'mere wants some thread, but he isn't our——Mother," she called.

He was thin, and pale, and travel-stained, and had not the brisk, jaunty air of the peddlar.

But he came up the little path, and looked at her so sharply she jumped up, hugging Judy tightly. "Some one, mother," she said, half frightened.

Mrs. Carrick stepped to the door, and glanced. Then, with a cry, she went to her husband's arms.

They both almost fell on the doorstep.

"Oh," she cried, "you are tired to death! And——"

"Never mind; I'm home. And I have all my limbs, and have never been ill. It has been a desperate struggle, but it's ending grandly. And everybody——"

"They are all alive and well. Oh, we've been watching, and hoping—it doesn't matter now, you are here;" and she leaned down on his shoulder and cried.

"Three years and four months. I couldn't get word very well, and thought I'd rather come on. You see, my horse gave out, and I've had a ten-mile walk. And—the baby?"

"Oh, she's a big girl. She was sitting here——"

"Not that child!" in surprise.

"Daffodil," called her mother.

The child came shyly, hesitatingly.

"Dilly, it's father. We've talked of him so much, you know. And you have watched out for him many a time."

Somehow he didn't seem the father of her imagination. He took her in his arms, and dragged her over in his lap.

"Oh, I forgot you could grow," in a tone broken with emotion. "But her blue eyes, and her yellow hair. Oh, my little darling! We shall have to get acquainted over again;" and he kissed the reluctant lips. "Oh, it is all like a dream! Many and many a time I thought I should never see you again;" and he wiped the tears from his eyes.

"If you are glad, what makes you cry?" asked the child, in a curious sort of way.

Barbe put her arms around Dilly. Of course, no child could understand.

"And the others," began Bernard Carrick.

"Oh, let us go in." There was a tremble of joy in her voice. "Mother, grandfather, he has come!"

Mrs. Bradin greeted her son-in-law with fond affection, and a great thanksgiving that he had been spared to return to them. They talked and cried, and Daffodil looked on wonderingly. Great-grandfather Duvernay, who had been taking his afternoon rest, came out of his room, and laid his hand tremblingly in the younger one, that had not lost its strength. Yes, he was here again, in the old home, amid them all, after many hardships.

"Oh, sit down," said Mother Bradin. "You look fit to drop. And you must have something to eat, and a cup of tea. Or, will it be a man's tipple? There's some good home-brewed beer—or a sup of whiskey."

"I'll take the tea. It's long since I've had any. And if I could wash some of the dust off—it must be an inch thick."

Ah, that was something like the old smile, only there was a hollow in the cheek, that used to be so round and so pink. She took him into her room, and, filling a basin with warm water, set it on the cedar chest, spreading a cloth over it, that he might splash in comfort.

"It's been a long journey," he said. "But the poor horse gave out first. Boyle, and Truart, and Lowy were with me, but not to come quite so far. Some of the young fellows remained, though the feeling is that there won't be much more fighting. The impression is that England's about as tired of the war as we."

"But you wouldn't have to go back again?" Barbe protested, in a sort of terror.

"Well—no;" yet the tone was not altogether reassuring.

She took his coat out by the door and brushed it, but it was very shabby. Still, he looked much improved when he re-entered the room, where Mrs. Bradin had set a tempting lunch at the corner of the table. But he could hardly eat for talking. Barbe sat beside him—she could scarce believe he was there in the flesh.

Daffodil went out in the sunshine again. She started to run over to grandad's. Norry would be so glad. Well, grandad too, she supposed. Had he really believed father would never come home? Somehow, it was different. In Norry's stories the soldiers were strong, and handsome, and glittering with gold lace, and full of laughter. She couldn't recall whether they had any little girls or not. And there was her mother hanging over the strange man—yes, he was strange to her. And her mother would care for him, and stay beside him, and she somehow would be left out. Her little heart swelled. She did not understand about jealousy, she had had all the attention, and it was not pleasant to be pushed one side. Oh, how long he was eating, and drinking, and talking, and—yes, they laughed. Grandad was coming up to the house with a great two-handled basket—she knew it was full of ears of corn, and she did so like to see him shell it, and hear the rattle as it fell down in the tub. He sat on a board across the tub, and had a queer sort of affair, made by two blades, and as he drew the ears of corn through it, scraped off both sides.

No, she wouldn't even go and see grandad, for he would say, "Well, yellow-top, your father hasna come home yet;" and, she—well, she could not tell a wrong story, and she would not tell the true one. Grandad wouldn't go back on her, but he could wait.

"Oh, Dilly, here you are!" said her mother, coming out of the door, with her husband's arm around her. "We're going over to grandad's; come;" and she held out her hand.

The soldier looked more attractive. His faded cap had been thrown aside, and his short dark hair was a mass of curls. He looked sharply at the little girl, and she turned away her face. Still, she took her mother's hand.

Norry had been sitting by the window. Now she rushed out with a shriek of joy.

"Oh, Barney! Barney! Sure, I've been afraid we'd never set eyes on you again! The saints be praised! Sandy!"

Sandy Carrick came and put his arms around his son. Both were rather tall men. For some moments neither spoke. Then the father said, "Cross the threshold, Barney. An' here's a silver shilling—kiss it for good luck an' a long stay."

Bernard did as his father bade him, and the two crossed the threshold together.

"Now, you must have something to eat and drink," began hospitable Norah. "Deed an' true, the crows would hardly make a meal of you."

"But I've been stuffed already," he protested.

"No matter. There's always room intil you're laid on your back for the last time. An' you're that thin, 't would take two of you to make a shadow."

She set out cold chicken, and boiled bacon, and bread that would tempt one on a fast day, with a great loaf of cake, and Bernard and Barbe sat down. Sandy brought out the whiskey bottle. No one thought of objecting in those days.

"Oh, where's the colleen?" and Norah stepped to the door.

"Has she gone back home? She takes it a little strange," said Barbe. "She can't remember well. But she'll come to it presently." Then Barbe raised her eyes and met her husband's, that were so full of adoration; she blushed like a girl.

"And the war is over," declared Norah. "Did they all have leave to go home?"

"Oh, no. We can't say it's over, though the thought is there'll be no more hard fighting. And we've some good friends on the other side to argue the case for us."

"No, no," snorted Sandy. "It's not over by a long shot. An' then they'll get to fightin' atween theirselves, and split here an' there. Weel, Mr. Captain, are we to have a King or a great Emperor, like him of France, with a court an' all that?"

Bernard laughed. "We'll have neither. We've gotten rid of kings for all time."

"Don't do your skreeking until you're well out o' the woods. But I hope you'll be wise enough next time to let t'other fellow take his chance. An' it beats me to think a great Lord an' a great soldier, too, should be put about, and captured by a crowd of ignoramuses without training."

"Oh, you learn a good deal in five or six years," said the son good-naturedly. "There have been the Indians and the French."

"And I can't abide turn-coats. First we fight for th' old country, then turn around and fight forninst it. We lick the French, an' then ask their aid. A fine country we'll have, when no one knows his own mind!"

"You'll see the sort of country we'll make when we get about it. And we have no end of brave fine men who'll plan it out for us. Here's to your health and luck. And now tell me what Pittsburg has been doing."

He raised his glass and barely touched it to his lips. Sandy drained his.

"There's not much doin'—how could there be, with no money?" he answered shortly.

"But you've the place for a fine town. New York and Philadelphia may have the start, but it's up to us to come out fair in the race. You have the key to the great West. Some day we'll clear the French out of that."

"Oh, don't talk war," interposed Norah. "Tell us if you're glad to get home. And should you have known Dilly? She'll be the one to set hearts aching with those eyes of hers, when she gets a bit grown up."

"We must go back," said Barbe. "And, Bernard, you must be stiff with your long tramp. They rode mostly all night, and when the horses gave out, walked. You must go to bed with the chickens."

Sandy gave a snort.

"I'll be over in the morn, ready for a talk or a fight," laughed Bernard. "God be praised that He has cared for us all these years, and let us meet again."

Sandy looked after his son, who had the fine air of a trained soldier.

"An' when we get him fatted up," said Norah, "he will be main good-looking."

Daffodil had sauntered slowly homeward. She looked for some one to call after her, but there was no sound. Oh, her mother did not care for her now, and Norry had not so much as coaxed her in and offered her a piece of cake. She entered the house rather sadly. Gran'mere was concocting some treat for supper. She just turned and said, "Were they glad to see your father?"

"I don't know. I didn't go in." Then she crept up alongside of grandfather, and leaned her face down on his breast and cried softly.

"Dear, what has hurt my little girl?" pushing aside the mop of hair.

"Mother won't want me any more. Nor grandad, nor Norry, nor—nor any one;" and Daffodil seemed very lonesome in a great cold world, colder than any winter day.

"Yes, I want you. Oh, they'll all want you after a day or two. And it's a great thing for your father to come home safe."

"I don't believe I am going to like him. He isn't like what I thought."

Grandfather smiled. "Wait and see what he is like to-morrow. It's almost night now, and things look different, cloudy-like. There, dear, don't cry when we are all full of joy."

Neighbors kept dropping in, and the table was crowded at supper time. Hospitality was ungrudging in those days. Grandfather had the little girl close under his wing, but she had a curiously strange feeling, as if she was outside of it all. Then her mother said:

"Wouldn't you rather go to bed, dear? The men will want to talk about battles, and things, not best for little girls to hear. When you are older they will interest you more."

"Yes," she replied, and kissed grandfather. Then her mother undressed her and tucked her in her little pallet.

"Oh, you will always love me?" she cried, in a tremulous tone.

"Always, always. And father, too." Even if other children should come, the years when Daffodil had been her all could never be dimmed.

The mother shut the door softly. They were kindly enough, this conglomerate population, but rough, and the French strain in the Bradins had tended to refinement, as well as living somewhat to themselves.

Daffodil cried a little, it seemed a comfort. But she was tired and soon fell asleep, never hearing a sound, and the company was rather noisy. When she woke, the door to the living room was partly open, and the yellow candlelight was shining through. Mornings were dark, for they had come to the shortest days. There was a curious rustling sound, and Dilly ran out in her little bare feet, though the carpet was thick and warm. Gran'mere was cooking, Barbe was washing dishes, Judy sat by the fire in a grave upright fashion. How white the windows were!

"Oh, it's snow!" cried the little girl. "Are we snowed up, as grandad tells about? Why, we can't see out!"

"Yes, it's a tremendous snow. Bring out your clothes, and let me dress you. Don't be noisy."

The child seldom was noisy. She wondered at the request. And what had happened? She had a confused sense of something unusual in her mind.

"Father is asleep. It was late when he went to bed last night, and he is so tired out that we shall let him sleep as long as he will. Get your clothes, and shut the door softly."

She did as she was bidden, with a furtive glance at the mound under the blankets. Her mother soon had her dressed in a sort of brownish red flannel frock, and a blue and white checked apron. Then she brushed out her silky hair, and made three or four thick curls.

"Oh, isn't it funny! Why, we can't see anything, not a house, or a tree, nor grandad's."

They could see that in almost any storm.

She went and patted Judy. Gran'mere was frying bacon, and when that was brown and crisp, she slipped some eggs in the pan. Grandfather kept his bed late winter mornings, and only wanted a bit of toast and a cup of coffee. That was generally made by roasting wheat grains, with a tiny bit of corn, and made very fair coffee. But it was necessity then, not any question of nerves or health.

So they ate their breakfast and everything seemed quite as usual except the snow. So far there had been none to speak of. Gran'mere put out the candle, and the room was in a sort of whitey-gray light.

There was queer, muffled banging outside, that came nearer, and finally touched the door, and a voice said "Hello! hello!"

Barbe opened it. There was grandad, in his frieze coat and fur cap, a veritable Santa Claus.

"Well, was there ever the beat of this! Stars out at twelve? The old woman's geese are gettin' plucked close to the skin. Why, it's furious! Dilly, come out and let me tumble you in the snow bank."

She shrank back, laughing.

"I'd have to dig you out again. How is the lad? Did we upset grandfather with the racket?"

"Oh, no. He always sleeps late. Have a cup of hot coffee."

"An' that's just what I will. Well, the lad's lucky that he was no' a day later, he'd been stumped for good. By the nose of St. Andrew, I never saw so much snow fall in a little time. An' it's dark as the chimney back."

"The snow is white," interposed Daffodil.

"Ah, ye're a cunnin' bairn. But put a lot of it together, and it turns the air. The coffee's fine, it warm the cockles of one's heart."

"What are they?"

"Oh, the little fellys that get hot, an' cold, an' keep the blood racin' round. And have delight bottled up to give out now and then when one is well treated."

Daffodil nodded. She was not going to say she did not understand.

"An' the b'y? He wants fat, sure. The country's made a poor shoat out of him. Well, I must go back, shovelin' for the path's about grown up. The boss out to the barn?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'll kem over agin, an' give him a hand."

"Grandad has a good heart," said Mrs. Bradin.

Mr. Bradin came in presently with a pail of milk. "This beats all for a storm," he said. "Now, I'll take a second breakfast. Dilly, come and sit here beside me, and take a taste of things. Not a livin' hen is up yet, just balls of feathers on the perch."

"Couldn't you take me out to see them?"

"If you get snowed under, we'll have to send for grandad. Well, they did have a roarin' time last night. He was plucky to take that long walk, though the poor fellows have had many a wearisome march."

He wrapped Dilly in a blanket, and carried her out to the barn. There was Mooley munchin' her hay, there was the pen of sheep that was always safe-guarded at night, and the hens, funny balls of feathers, sure enough. But the head of the flock stretched up his long neck and crowed. The pigs grunted and squealed a request for breakfast. Mr. Bradin threw them a lot of corn.

"Oh, let me walk back," she exclaimed. But the snow drifted in her eyes, and she tumbled over in the snow bank. He picked her up, and they both laughed.

Grandfather was up now, looking as neat and trim as possible. He always read a chapter in his French Bible, and Daffodil sat on the broad arm of the chair and liked to listen. Then he had his breakfast on the little stand, and Dilly ate the crust of his toast. She liked so to crunch it in her teeth. Then she always wanted a story about France, that seemed heroic to her, though she hardly knew the meaning of the word. But Norah's stories were generally amusing, and grandfather did not believe in the "little people."

It was noon when the soldier made his appearance. He really looked much refreshed, though his clothes were worn and shabby. And he kissed his little girl very fondly. Why, his blue eyes were very much like hers, and his smile won one to smile in return.

And then the sun suddenly broke through the gray clouds, and a gust of wind began tearing them to tatters, and letting the blue through. Gran'mere opened the door, and the very air was warm. She drew long, reviving breaths. Grandad was coming over again, with a great dish of roasted apples Norah had sent.

"I should be ungrateful if I didn't get fat by the minute," Bernard Carrick said. "But such a snow!"

"I never saw so much business done in the same time, but it'll run off like a river. And the sun is fairly hot. But there's plenty of time for winter yet. How does it seem to be out of barracks, or tents, or whatever you had, or didn't have?"

"There was a good deal of not having. But no one hardly knows all the hardships, and the danger. The wonder to me is that so many come out of it alive. And home is a better thing for all a man has passed through. I'm anxious to see how the town has gone on."

"H-u-g," with a sort of disdain. "It hasn't gone on. How could it, with the likeliest men thrashin' round the country worse than wild Indians. For we counted on their having a little more sense."

Bernard laughed. His father had been very angry about his going, and it was funny to see him try to be a little ungracious over his return, as he had been so sure he would never come back alive.

"Suppose we go out and take a look at it?"

"In all the snow!" so amazed he reverted to the ancient tongue. With the variety of people, and the admixture of English, the rugged points of dialect were being rubbed off.

"I've seen some snow, and travelled through it. But this is rather queer. Such a glorious air, and fairly a May day sun.

"Who dances barefoot in Janiveer will greet in March."

"But they wouldn't go barefooted in the snow," exclaimed Daffodil, in surprise.

"They wouldn't do it for choice, though I've seen them dance with their feet tied up in rags. Dance to keep themselves warm," said her father.

"Yes. Let us go to the Fort. You'll be wanting to see the b'y's grown up now. An' the old folk."

"You haven't grown much older;" looking his father over affectionately.

"Bedad! It's not much beyant three years, and does a man get bowed over, an' knock-kneed, an' half-blind, an' bald-headed, an' walk with a stick in that little time. Havers! Did you expect to see me bed-ridden!"

Bernard laughed. The same old contrarity that was not so much temper after all.

"I can't say the same of you, more's the pity. You've given the country, a pack of men who'll never give you a thankee, your good looks, an' your flesh, an' at least ten years. Ye're a middle-aged man, Bernard Carrick!"

Bernard laughed again. It was like old times, and, oh, how glad he was to be home again.

"Come, then; and, Dilly, run down an' see Norah, an' have a good time."

Sandy took his son's arm, and they went off together. Daffodil looked after them with long breaths that almost brought tears to her eyes. Grandad hadn't been glad when the news came; she could see just how he had turned with his nose in the air, and now he was claiming his son as if he had all the right.

Gran'mere was concocting some mystery on the kitchen table, Barbe sat at the little wheel, spinning. And she was singing, too. A faint pink had come back to her cheek, and her eyes almost laughed with delight.

She had a soft sweet voice. How long since she had sung with that gayety. True, she had been ill, and now she was well again, and Jamie had come home. But grandad had taken him off, and that somehow rankled in the child's heart.

She stood by the window, uncertainly. There were only two small windows in the large room that were of glass, for glass was costly. Another much larger had board shutters, closed tightly, and a blanket hung over it to keep out the cold. They called it the summer window. One looked over to the other house and Daffodil was there.

"I wouldn't go over if I were you," said her mother. "It is very wet. Grandad might have carried you, but he hardly knows whether he's on his head or his heels."

"He'd look very funny on his head. What makes him so glad? He was angry about—if that great general hadn't—I can't say the long word, father couldn't have come home."

She turned a very puzzled face to her mother.

"There might have been a big battle;" and the mother shuddered. "Oh, grandad will be as glad as the rest of us presently that we have a country. Now we can begin to live."

It was all very strange to her small mind. The sun was making rivulets through the snow, and the great white unbroken sheets sparkled with iridescent lights. Out beyond there was the Fort; she could see figures moving to and fro. Everything seemed so strange to her. And a country of one's own! Would the farms be larger, and, if England was beaten, what would become of it? Would they, our people, go over and take what they wanted? Would they drive the people away as they did the Indians?

She was tired of so much thinking. She went over to grandfather, and seated herself on the arm of the chair. She did not want Norry's fairy stories. Leaning her head down on the dear old shoulder, she said, "Tell me about a great King, who beat the English."

"Are you going mad about the English?" her mother asked laughingly. "We shall all be friends again. Quarrels are made up. And so many of us came from England."

"We didn't," returned Dilly decisively.

"Well—on the one side Scotch and Irish."

"And on the other French, pure French, until your mother married a Bradin, and you——"

"And Marc Bradin has been a good husband to me," said his wife, looking up from her preparations.

Truly, he had, and a kind son to him as well, though he had not been in favor of the marriage at first.

The story was about the grand old times in France. He never told of the religious persecutions to the little girl. He had a soft winsome sort of voice, and often lapsed into French idioms, but she was always charmed with it, even if she could not understand all he said. Presently she went fast asleep.

Then the darkness began to fall. The candles were lighted, and that roused both sleepers. There was a savory smell of supper, even Judy went around sniffing.

"We won't wait any longer," gran'mere said, with a little impatience. She had been cooking some messes that she remembered her son-in-law was very fond of, and she was disappointed that he was not here to enjoy it.

After that grandfather went to bed. Dilly was wide awake and held her cat, telling her a wonderful tale of a beautiful woman who had been turned into a cat by an ugly witch, and all the adventures she could remember. Judy purred very loudly now and then.

"Don't you want to go to bed?" asked Mrs. Carrick.

"Oh, I'm not a bit sleepy." Then, after a pause, "Will father stay at grandad's?"

"Oh, no. He is with the men at the Fort."

"But grandad took him away."

"Oh, they all want to see him."

"Doesn't he belong to us?"

"Yes, dear. But they always make a time when one comes home from the war."

"What queer things there are in the flames," the child went on. "I think they fight, too. Look at that long blue streak. Just as soon as the little red ones come out, he swallows them up. Then he sits and waits for some more, just as Judy does for a mouse. It's funny!"

"There, I've spun out all my flax. Now let us both come to bed."

There was a sound of voices outside. Then the door was flung open, and Bernard Carrick entered, with a rather noisy greeting, catching his wife in his arms, and kissing her vehemently. Then he clasped his arms about Dilly, and threw her up, she was so small and light. She stretched out her hands to her mother.

"Don't, Bernard; you frighten the child. We have been waiting for you to come home. And now Dilly must go to bed."

She took her little girl by the hand. Bernard dropped in the big chair.

Barbe seldom undressed her now, but she did this night. Presently Daffodil said in an imperious tone, "Do you like my father? I don't. I like grandfather, and gran, and grandad sometimes, but not always. And—father——"

"Hush, dear. You will come to like him very much, I know, for I love him dearly. Now, say your little prayer and go to bed."

Barbe went out, poked the fire a little, put on another log, and then sat down by her husband, who had fallen into a heavy sleep. Had he given the country something more than his service these three years—his manhood, the tender and upright qualities that dominated him when he went away? Sandy Carrick was of the old school, strong and stalwart, and not easily overcome, although he could not be called dissipated in any sense. But Bernard had never been of the roystering kind. She prayed from the depths of her heart that he might be made aware of the danger. The fire dropped down again, and she roused with a sudden shiver, rising and looking intently at him. The flush was gone, he was pale and thin again. Then he opened his eyes and saw her standing there. After a moment he held out both hands, and clasped hers.

"Forgive me, Barbe," he said. "I ought not have come home to you like that, but they are a wild lot and I hadn't the strength to stand it after the months of privations. Zounds! what a head my father has! I haven't been indulging in such junkets. I wanted to come home alive to you and the little one. But I couldn't get away without offence and one goes farther than one can bear. Don't think I brought the detestable habit home with me, though many a poor fellow does yield to it and you can't blame them so much, either."

"No," she answered softly, and kissed him on the forehead, much relieved at his frankness. Then as an afterthought—"I hope you didn't quarrel with anybody."

"Oh, no. Party spirit runs high. A man who has never seen anything beyond an Indian skirmish thinks he could set the country on its feet by any wild plan. And here we have so many shades of opinion. Father's amuse me; I wonder how he and great-grandfather keep such amicable friends!"

"Oh, he has no one nearby to play a game of piquet with him. And the Duvernay temper is much milder. But you must be tired. Let us fix the fire for the night."

"Tell me when I have it right. I am not quite sure, though I have looked after many a camp fire. And now I am here to ease you up somewhat, and look out for you. Your father has been very good through these troublous times, and I will see that he need not be ashamed of his son."

"Oh," she cried with deep emotion, "you make me very happy. So much of our lives are yet to come."

There followed several pleasant days. The snow ran off and another came and vanished.

There was little doing. Some people had looms in their houses and were weaving goods of various rather common kinds and many of the women were kept busy spinning thread and woolen yarns for cloth. Money was scarce, most of the trade was carried on by barter.

"It has the making of a magnificent city," Bernard Carrick said, surveying its many fine points. "From here you will go straight over to the Mississippi. Some day we shall have both sides. What have the French been about to let such a splendid opportunity slip through their hands."

"Don't stir up a hornet's nest at home," counseled the elder Carrick.

"Oh, you mean great-grandfather! He sees the mistakes and shortsightedness, and while he would have been proud enough to live here under French rule, he understands some aspects at the old home better than we, the extravagance of the Court, the corruption of society, and," laughing, "he is hardly as hot for France as you are for England. After all, what so much has been done for you or Scotland or Ireland for that matter?"

"This will be fought all over again. You will see. The country will be broken up into little provinces. Yankee and Virginian will never agree; Catholic and Puritan are bound to fight each other."

"Hardly! They fought together for the great cause and they'll hardly turn their swords on each other. I've been from New York to Yorktown. And now the great work is for every man to improve his own holding, his own town."

Pittsburg then had enjoyed or hated successive rulers. Great Britain, then France, Great Britain again, Virginia and Pennsylvania. It had been a strategic point worth holding, but no one then had dreamed of its later renown.

Bernard Carrick did not seem to make much headway with his little daughter. She had been startled with his rudeness, though he was gentle enough now. But what with her mother, grandad, and Norah, who was the most charming of stepmothers, she felt he had enough care and attention. She was not going to sue for any favors.

"Daffodil," he said one pleasant day when they had been rambling round the old Block House, not so very old then, though it could count on over twenty years, "Daffodil, why can't you love me as well as you love great-grandfather. I think you scarcely love me at all."

She kicked some gravelly stones out of her path and looked over the river. It was all so beautiful then, no smoke to obscure it anywhere.

"They all love you, they're always wanting you. Grandad doesn't care for me any more. And he wasn't a bit glad when the news came. He went in the house saying it was a 'lee' and Norry said the black cat was on his back. It wasn't a real cat, but like those in the stories. And he stayed there all day. And he wouldn't believe you were coming home or that the war was ended."

"He hardly believes it yet;" laughing. "But he was glad to have me come back. And are you not a little glad?"

"You have all mother's gladness. And gran'mere's."

She made a funny little movement with her dimpled chin, that if she had been older would have been coquettish. Her lashes were long and a sort of bronze brown, and her eyes made a glitter through them. Barbe had been a very pretty girl but the child was not much like her mother only in certain dainty ways. And her blue eyes came from him. He was rather glad of that.

"Don't you want them to be glad that I am back?"

"Why?"—she looked up perplexed. She was not old enough to define her emotions. "Of course I should want them to be glad."

"Yet you are a little jealous."

"Jealous!" she repeated. The word had no clearly definite meaning to her.

"Maybe I have crowded you out a little. But you will find as you grow that there is a great deal of love that can be given and not make any one the poorer."

"What is jealousy?"

She had been following out her own thought and hardly minded his truism.

"Why"—how could he define it to the child's limited understanding? "Jealousy is wanting all of another's regard and not being willing that any other shall have a share. Not being willing that grandad shall care for me."

"He wasn't glad at first." She could not forget that.

"It wasn't a question of wanting or not wanting me that made him captious. He could not enjoy the English being beaten. I do not understand that in him since he means to spend all the rest of his life here, and has never wanted to go back. He was only a little boy, not older than you when he came here. And he fought in the battle of Braddock's defeat. Though the French gained the day it was no great victory for them, for they gave up their plan of taking possession of all the country here about. And he has not much faith in the rebels, as he used to call us, and didn't see what we wanted to fight for. And he is glad to have me back. But he isn't going to love you any less."

"Oh, yes he does," she returned quickly. "I used to ride with him and he never asks me now. And he takes you away—then they all come asking for you and if everybody likes you so much——"

"And don't you like me a little?" He gave a soft, wholesome laugh and it teased her. She hung her head and returned rather doubtfully—"I don't know."

"Oh, and you are my one little girl! I love you dearly. Are you not glad to have me come back and bring all my limbs? For some poor fellows have left an arm or a leg on the battlefield. Suppose I had to walk with a crutch like poor old Pete Nares?"

She stopped short and viewed him from head to foot. "No, I shouldn't like it," she returned decisively.

"But you would feel sorry for me?"

"You couldn't dance then. And grandad tells of your dancing and that you and mother looked so pretty, that you could dance longer and better than any one. And he was quite sure you would come home all—all——"

"All battered up. But I think he and Norry would have been very good to me. And mother and everybody. And now say you love me a little."

"I was afraid of you," rather reluctantly. "You were not like—oh, you were so strange."

What an elusive little thing she was!

"But you are not afraid now. I think I never heard of a little girl who didn't love her father."

"But you see the fathers stay home with them. There are the Mullin children and the Boyles. But I shouldn't like Mr. Boyle for a father."

"Why?" with a touch of curiosity.

"Oh, because——"

"Andy Boyle seems very nice and jolly. We used to be great friends. And he gave me a warm welcome."

"I can't like him;" emphatically. "He beat Teddy."

"I suppose Teddy was bad. Children are not always good. What would you have done if you had been Teddy?" he asked with a half smile.

"I would—I would have bitten his hand, the one that struck. And then I should have run away, out in the woods and frozen to death, maybe."

"Why my father thrashed me and I know I deserved it. And you are not going to hate grandad for it?"

She raised her lovely eyes and looked him all over. "Were you very little?" she asked.

"Well—I think I wasn't very good as a boy."

"Then I don't like grandad as well. I'm bigger than Judy, but do you suppose I would beat her?"

"But if she went in the pantry and stole something?"

"Can you steal things in your own house?"

"Oh what a little casuist you are. But we haven't settled the other question—are you going to love me?"

"I can't tell right away;" reluctantly.

"Well, I am going to love you. You are all the little girl I have."

"But you have all the other people."

He laughed good-naturedly. She was very amusing in her unreason. And unlike most children he had seen she held her love rather high.

"I shall get a horse," he said, "and you will ride with me. And when the spring fairly comes in we will take walks and find wild flowers and watch the birds as they go singing about. Maybe I can think up some stories to tell you. I am going to be very good to you for I want you to love me."

She seemed to consider. Then she saw grandad, who had a little squirrel in his hands. Some of them were very tame, so she ran to look at it.

"A queer little thing," said the father to himself.

Spring came with a rush. Barbe Carrick glanced out of the south window one morning and called her little girl.

"Look, Dilly, the daffodils are opening and they make the garden fairly joyous. They are like the sun."

There was a long border of them. The green stalks stood up stiff like guards and the yellow heads nodded as if they were laughing. Wild hyacinths were showing color as well, but these were the first save a few snowdrops and violets one found in woody nooks. Birds were singing and flying to and fro in search of nesting places.

Pittsburg was not much of a town then, but its surroundings were beautiful. The two rivers were rushing and foaming now in their wild haste to pour their overflow into the Ohio. The houses had begun to stretch out beyond the Fort. Colonel Campbell some years before had laid out several streets, the nucleus of the coming city. Then Thomas Hickory completed the plans and new houses were in the course of erection. Still the great business of the time was in the hands of the Indian traders that the French had found profitable. Beyond were farms, and the great tract, afterward to be Allegheny City, lay in fields and woods.

A post road had been ordered by the government between Philadelphia and the town. And there were plans for a paper. For now most people were convinced that the war was at an end, and the Southern cities had been turned over to the Continental government.

There was a brisk, stirring air pervading the place. Business projects were discussed. Iron had been discovered, in fact the whole land was rich in minerals. The traders were bringing down their furs. It had not been a specially cold winter and in this latitude the spring came earlier.

"Oh, it's beautiful!" The child clapped her hands. "Can't I bring in some of them?"

"Oh, yes. But pick only the largest ones. Leave the others on to grow."

She came in with an apron full. "Some are for grandfather," she said.

"Yes, fill this bowl and put it on his table."

She had just finished when he came out. He was always immaculate, and his hair had the silvery tint. His daughter saw that it was always neatly brushed and the queue tied with a black ribbon. He was growing a trifle thinner and weaker.

"Oh, little one," he cried, "did you get a posy for me? Is it your birthday?" and he stooped to kiss the golden hair, then the rosy lips.

"Her birthday will not be until next week," said her mother.

"I had forgotten. I am almost a hundred. And she is——"

"Seven."

"And when I get to be a hundred I'll have a little table like yours, and read out of the Bible, and we'll talk over things that happened when we were children."

He laughed and patted her shoulder. "I shall not be here," he said slowly.

"Oh, where are you going? I do not want you to go away," and she drew an apprehensive breath.

"We do not always stay in one place. I came from France years and years ago. And I shall go to another country, heaven. It is always summer there."

"Can't you take me?" with an eager, upward look.

"Mother wants you. And you are to be a little old lady and sit in this chair."

"And wear a cap like gran'mere? And have two little creases in my forehead, so?"

She tried to make them but they were not much of a success, and the smile returned. "Now let us read."

She took her seat on the arm of the chair. Gran'mere came in and busied herself about breakfast. The reading was from one of the minor prophets. Dilly did not understand it very well but she could converse in the language quite fluently. Her mother had taught her to spell and read English. Girls were not expected to have much education in those days; indeed, here they grew up mostly like the flowers of the field. While the little girls to the eastward were working samplers, sewing long overhand seams, hemming, and doing beautiful darning, these little girls ran about, romped, helped to take care of the next younger baby, grew up and married, no one could have told just how.

After breakfast when the sun was warm and bright grandfather started for his walk. He always felt stronger in the morning. Sometimes Barbe went, often only Dilly. He liked the child's prattle. He liked, too, the way the denizens of the woods came to her, and the birds. True she always had some bread to crumble and she talked in her low sunny voice. Now and then a squirrel would run up her shoulder, watch her with beady eyes that almost laughed and whisk his feathery tail about.

"It does seem as if they ought to talk," she often said.

"They do in their language, only we can't understand them; at least we do in part. Doesn't he say in his fashion, 'I'm glad to see you? Have you any crumbs to-day.' And how one of them scolded when another ran off with that piece you dropped."

"That was funny, wasn't it!" and she laughed. They were sitting on a fallen log in the warm sunshine. Bees were out also, buzzing and no doubt grumbling a little because there were not more sweet flowers in bloom. And the birds sang and whistled in great glee.

They returned from their walk presently through the woods, where she gathered some curious wild flowers. Then they came out by the river, foaming and tumbling about as if it longed to overflow its banks. Now and then a rough kind of boat came down laden with stores of some kind, but there was no hurry visible anywhere.

About sixteen years before the Indians had ceded all the lands about Pittsburg to the Colonies. The six nations assembled with their principal chiefs and warriors and gave the strongest assurance of treaty keeping, which after all were not well kept, as usual. But they had retreated to better hunting grounds and for some time had made little trouble, though many friendly Indians remained.

The wanderers came out to the town proper. Streets were being surveyed, straightened, new ones laid out. There were about a hundred houses ranged round the Fort, but they had begun to spread outside. The disputes with the Pitt family, who had held the charter of Pennsylvania, had been mostly settled and grants of land given to many of the returned soldiers in lieu of the money the Colonial government could not pay. Pittsburg now belonged to the State, and a project had been broached to make it the county seat.

Grandfather looked very tired and pale as he came in and went straight to his chair. His daughter took his hat and cane.

"I did not mean to go so far. I wanted to look at the spot where I had buried my money;" with a little hollow laugh.

"Did you bury some money?" asked Daffodil, with eager curiosity. "Can't you dig it up again?"

"No, dear; it has to stay there for years. It may be dug up in your time, but I shall not need it."

She looked puzzled.

"You must have a cup of tea," said Mrs. Bradin, and immediately she set about it. Grandfather leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Dilly espied her mother in the adjoining room and went thither to exploit the splendid time with the squirrels and show the flowers she had gathered. Then she stood rather wistfully.

"Well?" said her mother in a tone of inquiry.

"Grandfather went to look at the money he had buried, but he couldn't find it. Do you suppose some one has taken it away?"

"Buried?" She seemed mystified a moment, then smiled. "It wasn't as we bury things. A long time ago when the French held the Fort and seemed likely to keep a good part of the country grandfather bought a large tract of land. Then the French were driven out by the English and they in their turn by the Colonists. But the land is there and some day the money may come out of it. Grandad thinks he might as well have thrown it into the river. But he has never wanted for anything, and it would likely have been spent for something else. It's odd grandfather should have said that to-day. He seldom mentions it. He was quite troubled over it at first—when I was a little girl."

"Oh," returned Daffodil, relieved, though she did not understand the matter.

"Go and put your flowers in water;" said her mother.

Grandfather was soundly asleep and did not wake until dinner was on the table. Then he scarcely tasted it.

"You must not take such long walks," his daughter said. "You cannot stand it any more."

"No, I am getting old," rather sadly. "When your mother died I felt that I didn't want to live, and now I am content to go on in this lovely world until the Lord calls me home. I thought once I should round out the century. There have been many changes in the hundred years."

And though he had been on exile for his faith's sake, though he had seen the blunders and sins of his country's rulers, he could not help reverting to the grand old dream of the magnificent empire of New France that would never come to pass now. How they had let all the advantages slip through their fingers that had grasped only at the wildest pleasures and dissipations.

Barbe went out in the sunshine to garden a little. She was so fond of growing and blooming things. And they yielded such a beautiful return. She sang snatches of songs, sometimes in French, sometimes the gay or sad Scotch ditties. Dilly went over to see Norah, all the men were out now at the spring work. Norah was spinning on the big wheel, but she could raise her voice above its whir and to-day she was full of merry legends. Dilly had brought the cat and Judy never objected to being held.

"I'm going to be seven years old," she said in a pause. "And when will I be almost a hundred like great-grandfather?"

"Oh, you've gone only a little bit toward it," laughed Norah. "Why I'm not half way there myself. And I don't want to be. I'd like never to grow any older. But you shouldn't stop at seven. You haven't come to the cream of life. There's more fun at seventeen and that's ten years away. But you're big enough to have a party."

"What is a party like?"

"Oh, you little innocent! A party is a lot of people together who laugh and tell stories and have a good time and something to eat and drink. And you must have a cake with seven candles around it."

"What are the candles for?"

"To light your way;" laughing. "No, to tell how many years you have lived. I'll make the cake, and the candles too. They'll have to be dips for I haven't any small mould. Don't you remember how your mother and gran'mere made candles last fall? And I haven't a bit of wax myrtle. Oh, I can melt up two or three of mine. They are more fragrant than tallow. Yes, you shall have a party. I'll talk to your mother about it."

Dilly was all interest and excitement. Her mother agreed at once. A modern little girl would have refused such a party. For there would be all grown people. Barbe Carrick had been a little exclusive with her child and she had not felt the need of playmates. Then they were rather out of the range of the Fort people as the somewhat crowded settlement was called. There were no schools nor Sunday-schools for little folks. Sunday was not very strictly kept. The schoolmaster read prayers, the litany, and a sermon from some volume on Sunday morning and the rest of the day was given over to social life. There were a few Friends who held their meeting in each other's houses; some of the Acadians had found their way thither, and now and then a priest came who took in the more devout of the Irish population. But there was a large liberty of opinion.

Norah would have the house decorated with blossoming shrubs and she made a wreath for the little girl to wear, for a few neighbors were asked in. James Langdale had been in Bernard's company, and Mrs. Langdale and Barbe had exchanged many a fear and a few hopes. There were two Langdale boys, but of course they were not eligible for a girl's party.

They had some idea of the fitness of things even then. Barbe and Bernard Carrick were at the head of the table with Daffodil on her mother's side and great-grandfather on the other. At the foot were grandfather and grandmother Bradin and on one side grandfather Carrick and Norah, fresh and smiling and full of gayety in the pretty lavender crêpe she had worn at her own wedding and that she saved now for high occasions, with her sapphire earrings and brooch that had come down to her through several generations and had been worn at Court and danced with royalty.

It was what we would call a high tea, a bountiful spread, and there was much jesting and joking. I think they didn't mind the little girl very much. She was perched up higher than usual and wore a white robe that was kept as a sort of heirloom when she outgrew it, for it was lace and needlework of her mother's making.

Jetty, a half Indian woman, waited on the table, and when the meats were taken out and the dessert brought in there was Daffodil's beautiful cake with the seven candles all alight. She thrilled with the pleasure. They passed around other cakes and home-made wine and drank great-grandfather's health and wished him many more years. Grandfather Carrick drank to Daffodil's future, wishing her long life and a happy marriage with great prosperity.

Then her mother helped her up on her feet. She felt very bashful with everybody's eyes upon her and almost forgot the little speech Norah had taught her, but her mother prompted and she replied amid great applause. The toasting went all around, then her candles were put out and she had to cut the cake, which she did with a silver knife that had a Louis stamp upon it. The cake was declared excellent.

"I'm going to take my piece home to the boys," declared Mrs. Langdale. "Husband, give me a taste of yours."

After that there was more merriment. Then Jetty took off the things, the tables were pushed back, and Norah and grandfather Carrick danced a jig. And it was dancing such as you seldom see nowadays. Norah could have made her fortune on a modern stage.

After Daffodil's party broke up the men went over to grandfather Carrick's, where they made a night of it, as was the fashion of the times. But Dilly and great-grandfather wanted to go to bed.

"A party is just beautiful!" declared Dilly. "Couldn't I have another sometime!"

"Oh, you are getting spoiled," laughed her mother. "Let me see—when you are ten, maybe."

So many new thoughts came to Daffodil that she was surprised at herself. Of course it was being seven years old. She began to sew a little and knit and make lace over a cushion. Very simple at first, and oh, the mistakes! Then there was gardening. How curious to plant a dainty little seed and have it poke a green head out of the ground. But funniest of all were the beans coming up with their shells on their heads; she was sure at first they must be upside down.

The men were very busy about the new town and sometimes they almost quarreled over the improvements. It was taking on quite a changed aspect. They were giving names to the streets and building much better houses of hewn logs, making plaster walls. But glass was very dear and for a long while they could only put in a few windows. The rest were openings, closed by shutters at night or in a storm.

The paper was a great source of interest, the Pittsburg Gazette. What they did without any telegraph and depending only on post horses puzzles us now. And the General Government had a hard task on its hands reconciling the different states and trying ways of getting money.

"They'll see, an' a sorry time they'll have of it," predicted Sandy Carrick. "It's settin' up housekeeping for yourself on nothing. Th' ould country's paid our bills and sent us what we needed an' they'll be glad to go back, mark my words now."

Bernard took his father's talk in good part. His knowledge was so much wider. There would be hard times, but there were brave men to meet it. Sometimes he wished they could go to a big city, but it would be cruel to tear Barbe away from the household when she was its light.

Daffodil had another wonderful pleasure. The old English people kept up some of their customs and they had a gay time over the Maypole. It was like a grand picnic. They had a smooth grassy place at the edge of the woods and the pole was a young tree that was denuded of its limbs as it stood in just the right place. They could not get ribbon, but strips of dyed muslin answered for the streamers. There were two fiddlers, there were gay choruses. One song grandad sang with great gusto. Captious as he could be when people did not agree with him, he had a fund of Irish drollery.

And grandad did trip it merrily. It was fortunate for Norah that she was not jealous, but she enjoyed a bit of fun, and her arch smile, the merry flash of her eyes, with the color coming and going, made her very attractive. Dilly wished she was big enough to dance—her little feet kept patting the turf and keeping time with the fiddle.

"You're Daffodil Carrick, aren't you?" said a boyish voice almost in her ear.

She turned, startled, and her eyes were so lovely they fairly transfixed him, and she stared unconsciously.

She did not speak but nodded.

"I'm Ned Langdale. My mother was at your party and brought us home a piece of your birthday cake. She said you were seven and as pretty as a fairy, and I'm fourteen, just twice as old."

"Oh," she said, "that's funny. And will you always be twice as old."

"Why—no. You can never be that but just once in your life—I mean with that special person. And when you were twenty I wouldn't like to be forty."

"Is that so very old? Great-grandfather is ninety-seven."

"Whew! That is old! But you see now I am seven years older than you and that is the way it will be all our lives. Do you go to school? There's a lady in Water Street who takes little girls, though she's only just begun."

"No; but I can spell, and read, and do little sums. And read in French."

"Oh, that's great! I'm studying Latin, but it's awful tough. Isn't it gay here? Can you dance?"

"I never tried with music."

"I can, just a little. Oh, say, it's splendid! If I knew just how I'd ask you to try it with me. It seems so easy when you look at them. It's so and so——" moving his hands. "Yes, do try. You whirl round——"

And without any real intention they started. It was like floating. Yes, she had done it when she thought of the little people dancing on the green.

"Oh," with a soft laugh of protest, and all out of breath. "It's—delicious! I didn't think I could do it for fair. I sometimes make believe. I'll get Norry to teach me."

"Norry? Who?"

"Why——" she flushed daintily. "That's grandad's wife."

"Then she's your grandmother."

"Oh, no, she isn't. You see the other wife died; she was father's mother and he married Norah. We all call her Norry."

"She doesn't look old enough to be any one's grandmother. And isn't she gay? She has such a merry face, pretty too."

"And she sings such gay songs. She knows all about the fairies, too, and she's seen them at home, that's Ireland. Why don't they come to America?"

"Maybe the witches drive them away. Witches are just awful! Come; let us try again."

He placed his arm around her and they whirled off to the fascinating music. Is there anything like a fiddle to put the spirit of delight in one's feet? Other couples were floating round or doing jigs with fancy steps and laughter. Now and then a bright, mirthful young lad ran off with some girl and left the first partner in the lurch, at which there was a shout.

"Oh, I wish you were my sister! Wouldn't we have fun! I have only one brother, Archie, and he's stupid as an owl—well, I mean he hasn't any fun in him, and he'd dance about like a cow. Oh, there's your—well, it would be queer to call her grandmother."

They both laughed at that.

"I wondered where you were, Daffodil. Isn't this Ned Langdale? I know your mother. Dilly, I think I had better take you home. I promised your mother I wouldn't keep you very long."

"Oh, no; let me stay just a little while. It's all so gay and they dance so—so—isn't it like a fairy ring?"

Norah laughed. "Well, I'll take another round, then we must go. You keep her just about here, then I shall know where to find you. Aren't you tired, though?"

"Oh, not a bit."

Her eyes shone like stars and there was a most delicious color in her cheeks like the dainty first ripeness of a peach.

"There's a tree over there—go and sit down. I won't be long."

The great tree had been cut down and there were no end of chips lying about.

"Now, if I was home I'd get a basket and gather them up," said Ned. "Mother thinks they make such a splendid fire. It's odd that our fathers were out in the war together, and are real good friends. I mean to be a soldier."

"But if there isn't any war?"

"There'll be Indian wars until they are all cleared out. They're a treacherous lot and never keep their word. And governments need an army all the time."

"But it's dreadful to fight and kill each other."

"Still you have to. History is full of wars. And there were so many in the Bible times. The children of Israel had to fight so many people to get the land of Canaan that the Lord promised them. And we've been fighting for a country—that is, our fathers have—and now we've gained it. Oh, wasn't it splendid when Cornwallis surrendered. Did you hear Kirsty that morning? I thought the place was on fire."

That brought grandad's face before her and she laughed.

"I didn't know what it meant nor who Cornwallis was. I'm only a little girl——"

"But you're awful smart to read French. Can you talk it?"

"Oh, yes. Grandmother Bradin was French. They went to Ireland and then came to America, and since father has been away they have talked it a great deal more, so you see I know both."

"Mother said your party was so nice. And the old grandfather was like a picture. When they drank your health you had to reply."

Daffodil's face was scarlet.

"I almost forgot. Norry made me say it over and over, but mother whispered and then I remembered."

"Oh, I wish I could have seen you. And you are so little and pretty. I'd like to see your French grandfather. Could I come some time?"

"Why, yes. And you'd like Norry so much."

"Do they live with you?"

"Oh, no; but it's only a little way off——"

Norah came flying back. "Come," she said hurriedly. "Grandad's had a fit about you because I did not have you tucked under my wing. Why, I should have dropped you while I was dancing. Glad you've taken such good care of her;" and Norah nodded to him as she took the child by the hand. "Don't say a word about the lad, or grandad will show his claws and scratch all round."

He was waiting where a path turned off.

"Well, Yellow-top," he began, "so you're not lost. Had a good time?"

"I was watching them dance. And they were so merry. Oh it was fine!"

"No place for a little youngster like you. Norry was crazy to think of it."

"I saw some other little children——"

"Yes, rabble;" and the nose went up.

"Grandad, don't be cross. I had such a nice time;" and she slipped her small hand in his.

"You're 'most a witch, you cunning little thing;" and he gave her a squeeze. "Now, Norry, take her to her mother's arms before you let her go."

They turned off, and grandad, who had not had his fun out, went back.

"It was all splendid, Norry. I want you to show me how to dance and teach me some songs—some of those gay and pretty ones."

"Well, well! you are getting along. Daffodil Carrick, you'll break hearts some day;" and Norah laughed.

She had so much to tell them at home and she spoke of Ned Langdale, but she did not quite like to tell about the dancing, wondering if there had been anything wrong in it, and she did not want to have Norah blamed. She liked the gayety so much. It was rather grave at home, with all grown people. And her mother was not all hers now. Father was very fond of her. And she was coming to like him very much.

He was pleased that she had such a nice time. He wondered if it would not be well to send her to this school for small children that had lately been opened. But her mother objected decidedly.

Oh, how beautiful the summer was with its flowers, and then its fruits. One Sunday afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Langdale came up with their son Edward, and Daffodil was glad to see him again. He was a nice, well-behaved lad, and very deferential to great-grandfather. The two soldiers talked over their battles and the state of the country. The preliminaries of peace were under way, but the settlement seemed to drag along. France still stood our friend.

Daffodil took him out to see the squirrels that came at her call and inspected him with such curious, inquiring eyes that he laughed about it.

"You see they are not used to boys," she explained.

The quails were very much at their ease as well, and robins flew and fluttered. Judy never tried to catch them, though sometimes she hunted out in the woods.

"Ned Langdale is a nice boy," said Dilly's father. "I don't wonder they are proud of him. His heart is set on being a soldier."

"I'm glad he isn't my son if that is his bent," Barbe said. "And I hope we'll hear no more of war."

The summer passed rapidly. Daffodil found many things to entertain her, but grandfather demanded much of her time. He took his morning walk with her hand in his, but he did not go as far as formerly. Then, on his return, he had a nap in his chair. He lost his appetite during the latter part of the season. In the afternoon he took a long nap. Daffodil read to him now, and he did not appear to notice her blunders.

"Father fails rapidly, I think," Mrs. Bradin said to her husband.

He shook his head with a slow, sympathetic movement.

"We shall miss him very much. And Dilly will feel it. I am sorry to have her know the mystery no child can understand."

"We won't go for a walk this morning, Dilly," he said one day in later August. "The air is very close. We will wait until evening."

"But you go to bed so early."

"Yes, I'm getting old," with his faint, sweet smile.

"But everybody says you must live to be a hundred. That's a whole century."

"Sometimes I feel as if it were two centuries since I began. But it has been a pleasant journey toward the last. I'm glad to have had you, Dilly."

"I'm glad, too," the child said with her bright smile.

"Now you may sing to me a little."

So she sang him to sleep. Then she went to wait on her grandmother. Her mother was sewing by the window in their sleeping-room.

"Go and look at grandfather," she said presently.

"He is still asleep. Mother, I wish you would show me that stitch I began yesterday."

So she sat down at her work.

Mrs. Bradin went to her father. His head had drooped a little forward. She placed her hand on his forehead, and drew a long quivering breath. The summons had come, peacefully, for him.

She was still standing there when her husband entered, and at a glance he knew what had happened.

"It is best so," he said.

Barbe was startled beyond measure. Latterly her thoughts had been revolving much about herself, and though she had remarked the slow alteration, she had put off the assumption of the great change. Somewhere in the winter—maybe spring, and here it was with the ripening of summer.

They carried him to his room and laid him tenderly on his bed. A long, well-used life it had been.

To Daffodil it was a profound mystery. No child could comprehend it. This was the journey grandfather had spoken of, that she had imagined going back to France.

"What is it, mother? How do people go to heaven?" she asked.

"Some day we will talk it all over, when you can understand better. We must all go sometime. And we shall see each other there."

"Then it isn't so bad as never seeing one again," and there was a great tremble in her voice.

"No, dear. And God knows about the best times. We must trust to that."

He looked so peaceful the day of the burial that Daffodil thought he must be simply asleep. She said good-by to him softly. There had been no tragedy about it, but a quiet, reverent passing away.

Still, they missed him very much. Barbe wanted to set away the chair that had been so much to him. She could not bear to see it empty.

"Oh, no, mother," pleaded Daffodil. "When I go and sit in it I can talk to him, and he seems to come back and answer me. It's so lovely where he is and there isn't any winter. Think of having flowers all the year round. And no one ever is ill. There are such beautiful walks, and woods full of birds, the like of which one never sees here. And I can put my head down on his shoulder, just as I used, and I can feel his hand holding mine. Oh, no, don't take it away, for then I should lose him."

The child's eyes had a wonderful exalted light in them, and her voice had a tender, appealing sound, that went to the mother's heart. She was thankful, too, that Daffodil had no terror of death. She shrank from it as from some dread spectre standing in her way.

The child missed him most in her walks. Norah liked neighbors to chaff and gossip with; rambles, with no special motive, did not appeal to her. Gran'mere was always busy, her mother was easily tired out. She rode, as of old, with grandad, but she could not use the pillion, her arms were too short to go around his stout body. Her father took her out with him when he could; he did a good deal of surveying. On Saturday Ned Langdale would hunt them up, and one day he brought Archie, who was three years younger, and not exactly stupid, either, but always wanting to examine the beginning of things, and how the Indians came to own the continent, and why the Africans were black and had woolly hair and in the country called Asia they were yellow? And if God created only two at first, how did they come to be so different? And how did Adam know what to name the animals? Were there people living in the stars?

"Oh, do hush up," his mother would exclaim impatiently. "You are enough to turn one's brain upside down! And you can't say half the multiplication table. I don't believe you know how many black beans make five!"

It had been a great puzzle to him. He sprung it on Daffodil one day.

She considered. "Why, five would be five of anything, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, how quick you are with a good reason, too. I couldn't see into it for ever so long. I'm awful dull."

Then they both laughed. His face was such a good honest one, but not full of mirth, like Ned's.

They were really nice boys, and her father felt he could trust her with them. But he wished there were some tolerably well trained girls for her to know.

Then the winter came on again. Her father had to go to Philadelphia on some business, and there were stirring times in the brave old city. They missed him so much. Grandfather Bradin was promoted to the whole name now, as there was no chance of confusion, but the little girl as often endearingly called him "gran."

Bernard Carrick brought home with him great-grandfather's will that had been made five years before, and intrusted to a legal friend, who was, like himself, a Huguenot refugee. To his wife Felix Duvernay had entrusted his strong box, with the gold pieces that were almost heirlooms, and various jewels, to do with whatever she chose. There were some deeds of property that he brought home with him, and the will.

"I was amazed," he said to Barbe. "Why, there are acres and acres of ground that will be worth a mint of money some day. And it is all securely made over to Daffodil Carrick. Your father and I are appointed guardians, and this Mr. de Ronville is administrator. His father was exiled about the same time, but he came at once to America. It seems a little queer that great-grandfather shouldn't have made more of it."

"I think, after the purchase he felt rather sore about it, as if it was a foolish bargain. But he thought then that the French would be the real rulers of America," said Mrs. Bradin. "Yet he never alluded to the will; and you know he was always very fond of Dilly, and that there was no other child."

"Dear old man! When Dilly is grown up she will be an heiress. It can only be leased until she comes of age. I wish it was on this side of the river. Well, as my father says, 'it will neither eat nor drink,' except the rains of heaven. We won't proclaim it on the housetops."

So matters went on just the same. No one gave much thought to "over the river" then.

One morning Mrs. Carrick was not very well. Norah came over, and there was grave consulting. She took Dilly back with her, and in the afternoon grandad bundled her up and drove her over to the mill with him, and was very jolly. They did not return until dusk, and then Norry's supper had such a savory fragrance she decided to share it. Norry had been over to the other house, and "mother" had a bad headache, and Dilly was to stay all night. She had brought over her nightgown.

"That's funny!" exclaimed Daffodil. "Mother seldom has a headache. Oh," with a sudden alarm, "you don't think mother will be ill for weeks and weeks, and grow pale and thin, as she did before father came home."

"Oh, no;" and Norry threw up her head with a laugh. "She'll be up again in no time."

Grandad was teaching the little girl to play checkers, and she was deeply interested. Norry was knitting a long woollen stocking for him, and sang bits of gay Irish songs. But by and by the little girl began to yawn, and made some bad plays.

"You're sleepy," said grandad.

"Yes, I can't get over to the king row;" and she smiled. "But you just wait until to-morrow, when I'm bright and fresh."

So Norry put her to bed, and, leaving grandad to read the Gazette, she ran over to see how it fared with Barbe, and did not come home until morning. Grandad had a nice fire, and had made the coffee.

"Oh, dear," began Daffodil, coming out in her trained nightgown, as they made garments for children to grow in, in those days, "isn't it funny? When I woke up I couldn't think where I was, and it came into my mind about little Bridget, that fairies took away for seven years. Then I would be fourteen."

"That's some of Norry's nonsense. Get on your clothes, and come and have these grand griddle cakes and sausage, that'll make you sing in your sleep."

"Why not when I am awake?" with laughing eyes.

"Anybody can do that. But it takes something extra good to make you sing in your sleep."

She thought they were quite good enough, and wondered how it would seem to sing in the night, and the dark, and if she could hear herself.

Then her father came after her. Grandad wrung his hand and said, "Lad, I wish you joy and the best of luck."

What did that mean?

"Daffodil, something wonderful has happened to us, and I hope—you will like it. We are very happy over it. We have a little boy who came in the night. A little brother for you. And we want you to be glad."

"Oh, was that what grandad meant?" she asked gravely.

"Yes. You see, girls marry and give up their name. But a boy carries it on. And grandad hated to have the name die out. He will be very proud of the boy, but I think no one will be quite as dear to him as Daffodil."

The child was revolving various thoughts in her mind, and made no comment. When they entered the house, Grandmother Bradin took off her hat and cloak, and kissed her very fondly. Her father watched the small serious face. Then he sat down in the big chair, and took her on his knee.

"Dilly," he began in a pleading tone, "I hope you won't feel as if—as if you would be crowded out. We have had you the longest, and you were our first sweet joy. We can never love any other child quite like that. And nothing can ever change our love for you. So you must not feel jealous because we shall love him and be glad to have him——"

"Oh, that was what you said a long time ago, when you first came home—that I was jealous. No, I didn't like mother to love you so much. And you were strange, and you can't love any one all at once;" incoherently.

"But you are not jealous now?"

"No. It didn't take her love from me, only a little while."

"It did not take it away at all. And there were two people to love you, instead of one. Suppose I had felt hurt because you loved grandfather so much?"

"Was it like that?" She raised her lovely eyes with an appealing light in them. "And was I very bad?"

He stooped and kissed her. "It was very natural, and the only thing, the best thing, is to wait until the other one understands. You love me now?"

She reached up and twined her arms about his neck.

"I love you very much," she returned in an earnest tone. "And I am gladder than ever to have you love me, now that grandfather has gone away. But I don't want any one else to go."

He clasped her more tightly. No, any other break in the circle would mean a more poignant grief. There was no one to spare.

"And you will not mind if we love the little boy a good deal?"

"No—since it is a little boy. I am glad it is not a girl, that you chose a boy," she made answer simply.

"We all wanted the boy. Dilly, I am glad to have you love me, and I hope it will grow stronger as you grow older, and understand how sweet affection really is."

Mr. Bradin called him away. He put Daffodil in the chair and she leaned her head down and whispered to grandfather that a little boy had come, and she was going to be glad, because they all wanted him. And then a curious thought flashed over her. Death and life are profound mysteries, even out of childhood.

"Would you like to see the baby?" asked gran'mere Bradin.

"Oh, yes."

Her mother glanced up out of fond dark eyes. Why, she was as pale as in her long sickness, but not so thin. She said, "Kiss me, Daffodil."

"Oh, mother!"

"And here is little brother."

Daffodil's first feeling was disappointment. She had thought of some angelic beauty. He was red and crumpled up, and there was a crown of thick black hair, and his mouth was puckered up. The mother patted his little face.

"He will look better by and by," she said reassuringly.

"Mother, I was thinking—it came to me in the chair—isn't it old grandfather come back to us again to live his life over? You know, everything begins little. The flowers die, but they spring up again, most of them in the same places."

"Why, child, that is a pretty thought;" and the mother smiled. "And he will have his name, only Grandfather Carrick must have his in, so it will be Alexander Felix Duvernay."

"I don't want him to be called Sandy."

"I think he won't be. And, Daffodil, you won't mind—I mean, you won't feel jealous. We wanted him so much." There was a touch of anxiety in the mother's voice.

"Oh, no. Father asked me that. No, you may love him ever so much, while you love me as well."

"She takes it very calmly," said Gran'mere Bradin afterward. "Some children as old as she, and been the only one so long, would have made a great fuss. We have all spoiled her a little, but she has such a sweet temper. It is the Duvernay temper;" smiling.

"I hope I have a good share of it," resumed Barbe.

The baby was not small, and he grew by the hour. He had soft, large dark eyes. Grandad did not like so much French about him, but he was glad to have a grandson, even at that estate. He soon bleached out, though he was not fair like Daffodil.

"I'll have to see about making a fortune for him," said grandad. "Though those acres of wood and farmland will not amount to much, and I don't see what a girl can do with a farm."

But the acres lay smiling in the sunshine, perhaps dreaming of the time when they should be homes of beauty.

Meanwhile events had been going on rapidly, if not harmoniously, for a stable government for the Colonies. And there must be some sort of a head. A government of the largest liberty it must be, the states forming a great federation for protection and advancement. Out of the discussion came the Federal Constitution, and a President, the man who had never lost faith in the possibility of a great nation.

There were, of course, a few dissenting voices, and many fears. For the nation was only an infant.

"What did I tell you," said grandad to his son. He had to argue, it was one of his satisfactions. "Four years, they say. In two years the silly things will make him a king, and in ten years you'll be fighting for liberty again. There's no money to be had—we shall be glad enough to run back to England, and beg to be taken in. The French will throw us over."

"Don't look so far ahead." Bernard kept his temper under these onslaughts. But he did hate to have his father haranguing little crowds here and there over the spirits that were being so largely manufactured.

"Oh, yes! And have them catch us unprepared. Where's the money coming from to build a navy, to pay new soldiers when the old ones are half starving, to keep your grand President. You see, he'll have a court and a style, while we common folks can kneel outside the gates."

"We're going to look out for our own town, and let the men at the helm take care of the larger interests. We have everything for a fine city, and work for all, so we will take up the nearby business."

People were straggling in; they are generally gregarious. And there was plenty of work. There was felling of trees, a sawmill, and rough log houses were meant for only temporary housing. Wharfs and docks sprung up by magic. Then the school was merged into the Pittsburg Academy, afterward to be the University of Pennsylvania. Smaller schools came into existence, yet they were a great working people, and in those years the three R's were esteemed the most necessary.

Then, after a heated discussion, Pittsburg was established as the county seat, which enhanced its prestige. Some rigorous laws were passed, and a ducking stool was set up at the junction of the three rivers, much to the disgust of the better classes. At first there were crowds haunting the place, and jokes bandied about, but there was found small use for it.

"It's a good thing," said Sandy Carrick. "It'll keep the women in check, anyhow."

"Isn't it as well for the men?" asked Norah mischievously. "An', Sandy, you better look out, ye're scoldin' about the country 'cause you daren't try much of it on me. Don't I keep your house clean, mend your clothes, and knit you long stockings, so's you shan't get rheumatiz in your knees. An' if you know a woman who cooks a better meal of vittles, you had better go an' board with her."

She was so pretty and saucy that Sandy turned on his heel and laughed.

Then the Mayflower, with a lot of New England emigrants, passed Pittsburg for the shores of the Muskingum.

"Them Eastern states must just have overflowed," was the verdict. "Goin' out to Ohio, an' spreadin' theirselves abroad as bait for the Indians, when there's civilized lands lyin' about."

And as if Pittsburg was not large enough, they turned to consider Alleghany, and began to lay it out. It would make another fine city.

Meanwhile matters went on prosperously, with the Carricks and the Bradins. Bernard added a room to his house for Daffodil, and placed a window so she could see her mother's garden of posies. The baby grew amazingly, was well and strong, and positively pretty, looking a little like his mother, getting teeth without any trouble, walking, saying all manner of crooked words, and then straightening them, being a jolly, healthy child, and Norah's heart was bound up in him. She borrowed him half her time.

"I'd be a happier woman with a houseful of them," she said, "Sandy always insisted he didn't care, but I know he does. He's just ready to eat up little Sandy without a grain of salt."

They would call him that, while his home name was Felix. His father called him baby at first, then son. He liked everybody, but he adored his own father. Barbe stood a little in the background, not that she loved him less, but she gave a continual thanksgiving that he had met with such a warm welcome.

Daffodil was amused at his pretty ways, and the cunning bits of mischief that she often kept from his mother. She was so certain of her father's affection now. She took a warm interest in his doings, she sided with him about the country, and listened delightedly to the stories of bravery and endurance, and absolutely quarrelled with grandad when he predicted the wretched times that would follow throwing off the protection of the mother country, and the surety that an appeal would be made again for her protection.

"An' just look at what they are saying about your precious Washington! They'll turn him out before he's served his four years. No two of them think alike! And how's the money to be raised for expenses! You silly child, you don't know anything about it. An' your father's a gey fule!"

"I'll never come in this house again, grandad!" with a dignity that made her pink cheeks red and her blue eyes black.

"Then sure you'll never go out of it on such terms!" and grandad caught her and scrubbed her with his stubby beard, and hugged her so tight she was glad to promise she would come to-morrow. And likely she ran over that very evening.

"He's not worth the minding," Norry would declare. "He don't believe the half of it, and says it to see you spurt up. He's half the time spilin' for a quarrel that has no more in it than an empty eggshell."

Daffodil began to have some new interests in her life. She was growing rapidly, she went to school, and met children of her own age. Several chapels had been started, and there was a real clergyman, though they could not have him regularly, and then a reader took the service. The men had various outdoor diversions that had been brought from "the old country," and were never loath to join the women's frolics, at which there was dancing, and, it must be admitted, not a little drinking.

Norah took her out occasionally, "for," she said to Barbe, "it isn't just right to make an old woman of her. They love the fun when they're young, and that's natural, an' it's a sin to crowd them out of it."

Barbe was very domestic. Her house, her little boy, her sewing and spinning, filled up all her time. The child was a marvel to her. He was so bright and active, so pretty and merry, but altogether different from Daffodil.

Once when they had talked over great-grandfather's bequest, Bernard had said, "It seems almost a pity that Dilly had not been the boy, with that great estate to come to him. A man can do so much more in a business way than a woman. Not but that the boy will be cared for, father's heart is set on him. And I shall see that he is well provided for if I live."

Bernard Carrick was deeply interested in the welfare and advancement of the town, and found much work to do outside of the farm that his father-in-law attended to, indeed, had the greater interest in. Sandy Carrick had a great outlying tract. Grain of all kinds, especially wheat, grew for the mere planting in the virgin soil. And the staple product of the time was whiskey. Nearly every farmer had a still. The morality of drinking was not called in question, and the better class of people were temperate. It was the great thing they could exchange for their needs. They sent it over the mountains to Kentucky and Ohio. They built rough sort of tugs, and freighted it through the Ohio to the Mississippi, disposing of it anywhere along the route. The mouth of the great river was still in the hands of the Spanish.

It must be confessed, since the birth of Felix, Barbe had shared her motherhood a good deal with Norah, who laid claim largely to Daffodil. They wandered through the woods together, for the child peopled them with the old stories that Norah's faith made so real. She stopped for her at school, and brought her home to supper. Grandad at times tried to tease her. Strangely enough she was never jealous, even of her father's love for the little brother. And she said to grandad:

"You may love him all you like. He is a boy. Men ought to love boys. And he is named after you, though I don't like the name."

"Oh, you don't! One grandfather is as good as the other, and I'm nearer of kin. It's a good old Scotch name, an' they're good as the French any day."

"I don't like Sandy."

"And I don't like Felix. But I put up with it. You won't make a Frenchman out of him. I'll see to that;" and he gave a funny wink out of his eye.

"And if some day he should want to go to France?"

"I'll see that he doesn't. This place will be big enough and good enough for him. There's fortunes to be made here. I'm going to leave him mine, an' I'll bet you a gallon of whiskey it'll be worth more than your wild land."

"Well, I shan't care!" archly, and with laughing eyes. "I like the woods and the birds and the squirrels. Some day I'll have a house built, and I'll take Norah to live with me."

"You will, hey? I'll have something to say about that. Do you suppose I'll stay here and starve?"

He tried to look very angry, but she knew all about his face, and his tone, and said nonchalantly, "Oh, you can go over to the other house and get something to eat."

"Well, we'll see, little Miss Madam. You'll be gravely mistook!"

So they jested and pretended to bicker. Then grandad set up Norah with a pony and a sort of jaunting car, that would only hold two. For Daffodil could no longer keep her seat in the old fashion, neither would her arms reach around grandad.

Sometimes Norah took out Barbe and the little boy. For Daffodil went to school quite regularly about eight months of the year. The remaining time most of the children were needed to help at home.

Any other child would have been spoiled with the favoritism at school. The older ones helped her at her lessons, and in those days there were no easy kindergarten methods. They gave her tidbits of their luncheons, they piled her little basket with fruit, although she insisted there was so much at home. They brought her some strange flower they had found, they hovered about her as if there was some impelling sweetness, some charm. She had a way of dispensing her regard impartially, but with so tender a grace that no one was hurt.

"I just wish we could go to the same school," Ned Langdale said in one of the Sunday rambles. He was always on the lookout for Norah and her.

"But—the big boys go there."

"Yes. Oh, you wouldn't like it a bit. Beside, you couldn't. And the lessons are just awful. And the thrashings——"

"Don't. I can't hear about that;" shaking her pretty golden head.

"No. Girls oughtn't. But they say it's good for children——"

"For boys. Why, are boys worse than girls?"

"Oh, they are not. I know some girls who are mean, and tricky, and don't tell the truth. All girls are not like you."

"Maybe it's because everybody is so good to me. I couldn't be bad in return, you know."

"Oh, I just wish you were my sister, and lived with us."

"Well, you see that couldn't have been. God sent me to mother."

"But a fellow can wish it."

"It's queer, but there are a great many things wishing doesn't bring. I suppose it's because they can't happen."

He gave a sigh.

She knew how to dance now; Norah had taught her, but it comes natural to most children, and it did to her. She used to dance by herself, and sometimes whirl little brother round, to the great amusement of her father.

Ned used to stray over summer evenings to hear Mr. Carrick talk about the war, and the dangers he had escaped. He never told the hardest side of it, not even to Barbe.

There were other boys who made various errands, and if she was not home, went over to Sandy's for her.

"This thing must stop," grandad said angrily. "What are they running after such a child as that for? Oh, don't tell me it's some trumped-up errand. It's just to sit and look at her as if they never saw a girl before! She's pretty to look at, to be sure, but she's not going to have lovers in a long time yet."

"Sandy, don't get your head fuddled with that kind of nonsense. It's a heap worse than whiskey."

Sandy gave an indignant grunt.

"Oh, here's a letter for father. Grandad brought it. From Philadelphia. And here's a queer red something"—and Dilly peered over it.

"Seal," said her mother. "And, why, it's from that friend of great-grandfather's," studying the French emblem. And an odd shiver ran over her, as she suddenly studied her child.

Dilly laughed. "You look as if you were afraid he wanted me, as if he was some cruel old ogre, who might eat me up."

Then Barbe laughed also, and stood the letter on the high shelf over the chimney, that she could just reach.

It was from Monsieur de Ronville. He was coming to Pittsburg on some quite important business, for parties who had heard about the discovery of minerals, and that a blast furnace had been started; that Pittsburg was coming to be a point of connection with the west and south; and he would also like to see his ward and her possessions, that he might be able to advise in time to come. Would Mr. Carrick be kind enough to meet him and bespeak accommodations at some hotel for himself and his man, for all of which he would be extremely obliged.

Bernard Carrick looked at his wife in sheer amazement.

"Hotel! Well, there are only two or three taverns good enough for traders, and that ilk, who don't mind a roystering crew, gaming, and drinking. If it was government business, he might be taken in at the Fort. Why, what can we do? And a man. You see, he is used to the habits of civilized life, and we have had no time to fall into the traces. The Lindsays are in their new house, but I couldn't ask them to take in our guest."

"And we;" Barbe hesitated, then said laughingly, "we shall have to enlarge our borders. Sometime the boy will want a room."

Bernard dropped into grandfather's chair and considered. He had been about the world enough to know the place would look rather rough to a person from one of the chief cities. Somehow, they were a little different. There were pieces of fine old furniture that had come from France, then their ways were rather more refined. It would be the proper thing to take him in. And he would be here in about a week.

Mrs. Bradin agreed on that point. Truth to tell, she was anxious to see this M. de Ronville, whose father had been her father's boyhood's companion.

"Why, you could give him Dilly's room, and she could go over to Norry's," she said as they were discussing the next day what was to be done. "It is a good thing we brought down that old bedstead, though Dilly hated it so."

Dilly had outgrown her little pallet, though at first she declared the high posts were the little brown men grown into giants, who would carry her away. But when grandmere exhumed some faded silk hangings where the roses were of a creamy pink, and cupids with wings were flying about, she was soon reconciled. Then Grandfather Bradin had made her a chest of drawers and two chairs that looked as though they might have been imported.

"And I can fix a bed in the attic for the man, so we will have it all running smoothly."

"You are a great comfort," said Bernard to his mother-in-law.

The post now came every week. Even the busy folks went to meet it for the sake of the newspapers and the occasional letters, though those mostly went to the Fort. Sometimes a few emigrants had joined the train. For now there seemed to have broken out a fever for adventure, for founding new settlements, although in some places the Indians were still troublesome.

Bernard Carrick went to meet his guest. He could have picked him from the group at once by his decidedly foreign air, the French aspect. He was past sixty, rather tall, and very erect, almost soldierly, with a beautiful white beard, though his hair was only half sprinkled with snow. Clear, rather soft dark eyes, and a high-bred air that gave a grave, yet kindly, expression to his countenance. He had his horse, as well as his servant, who was a rather small, shrewd-eyed Frenchman.

Carrick introduced himself, and welcomed his guest cordially, explaining to him that they had not arrived at the dignity of hotels, and that the taverns were but poor affairs, so he would be pleased to offer him the hospitality of his own house.

"Thank you," he returned. "You are the father of my ward, I presume."

"Yes, she is my little girl;" with a smile.

"An odd sort of charge. Though I suppose it was because I was of his country. Nations are clannish."

"We shall get so mixed up that we shall hardly be able to trace our forbears. On her mother's side my little girl is mostly French."

"A little girl!" He seemed surprised.

"She will always be that to me. Only heaven knows my joy and gratitude at coming home from the long struggle, and finding her and her mother alive; indeed, the whole household. I have had a son born since."

"Yes. You were in the war. You may be proud of that. It will be an honor to hand down to your son. But your town——"

With a vague glance around, and an expression that was clearly not admiration.

"It has not had your advantages, nor your people, and is much younger. It seems to me on the verge of civilization."

Bernard Carrick laughed good humoredly.

"That is true," he returned. "Except for the confluence of the rivers there seems no special advantage, though the land is thought to be rich in minerals. And the Fort being built here—the French planned a long chain of them."

"It seems a just return to France for her indifference to her splendid Colonies. And I have lived long enough to see if there are no fatal mistakes made, that this will be a grand country. From the depths of my heart I pray for her welfare."

"And I fought for it," was the younger man's proud reply.

De Ronville had hardly expected to see such a house as this. The aspect was undeniably French, heightened by the old furniture that he had been used to in his boyhood. His room was delightful. Barbe had taken out most of the girl's fancy touches, and odd things her grandfather Bradin had made, and left a grave aspect. Outside, everything was a-bloom, and a rose climbed up a trellis at the side of the window, shaking its nodding fragrant blossoms against the window-pane, and, when it was open, showering in its sweet silky leaves.

They made friends readily. Great-grandfather Duvernay was the link between, and the women were more French than of any other race. It was almost supper time when Daffodil came in, leading her little brother by the hand. In him again the mother's type predominated; he was a fine, robust child, with a fearless, upright expression, and a voice that had none of the rougher tones of so many of the early settlers. But Daffodil! He studied her with a little wonder.

For her abundant hair had not yet shaken off its gold, and lay in loose thick curls about her neck. Her complexion was of that rare texture that neither sun nor wind roughened, and all the care it had was cleanliness and the big bonnets of those days. Her features were quite regular, the nose straight, rather defiant, but the beautiful mouth, full of the most tantalizing curves, fun, laughter, sweetness, and the something termed coquetry in older women, that is not always experience either. She was slender and full of grace, tall for her age, but most girls grew up quickly, though she had not left the fairyland of childhood.

"I am glad to see the darling of my old friend," smiling as he took her soft, dimpled hand. "I have always thought of her as a very little girl, sitting on the arm of her grandfather's chair——"

"Oh, did he tell you that!" in her bright, eager tone. "Yes, and we used to talk—he told me so much about France and—it was your father—was it not? I thought you must be quite young;" and a faint touch of surprise passed over her face.

"We were both set back in memory, it seems. And even I am getting to be quite an old man."

"But I like old men," she said, with charming frankness, and a tint of color deepened in her cheek. "They are all old except father, and the men who come in to play games are wrinkled up, and some of them have white hair. I've had such a lot of grandfathers, and only one grandmother."

"How did you get more than two?"

"It was great-grandfather Duvernay," explained Barbe, "that made the third."

"And this is his chair. Mother wanted to take it away, but I could not bear to have it leave this corner. I could see him in it. Strange how you can see one who is not really there, or do they come back for a moment? Here is the arm where I sat, and I used to put my arm round his neck. I am going to let you sit in his chair. Father won't mind;" glancing inquiringly at her mother.

"Dilly, you are too forward," and Barbe colored. Felix was climbing in her lap and almost upset her.

"No, no; her prattle is the most cordial welcome. And I hope you will soon like me well enough to come and sit on the arm and hear my stories."

"Oh, have you what Norry calls a bag of stories, that the little brown men carry about? They're queer, and they drop them over you while you are asleep, and that makes dreams, and you see people, and have good times with them."

M. de Ronville laughed. Bernard came in; he had been settling the man, and the luggage, and now repeated his hearty welcome.

When M. de Ronville settled himself in the corner and the chair you could almost fancy grandfather had come back. They had a strong likeness of race of the higher type, those who had been pure livers and held strongly to their religion. He was very tired with the journey and looked pale as he sat there, relaxed.

Barbe and her mother spread the table. They had a sort of outdoor kitchen they used for cooking in the warm weather. Felix was asking questions of his sister, who answered them with a sort of teasing gayety. Why was this so and that, and did she ever see a panther. Jimmy Servy's father killed a wolf out by the Fort, and Jimmy said a wolf would eat you up. Would it truly? "Then when I am big enough to fire a gun I'll go out and shoot all I can find."

The supper was most appetizing if it did not have the style of his own house. He was really pleased with the simplicity of the two women, and Mr. Bradin and his son-in-law certainly were intelligent if they had not the range of the greater world. Daffodil was quiet and well-mannered he observed. In truth he was agreeably surprised with these people who were not held in high esteem by the culture of the large city.

Dilly came to him afterward.

"I am going over to grandad's," she announced. "I stay all night with them sometimes. Oh, I hope you will like Norry. I love her dearly and you mustn't mind if grandad is a little queer."

"No, I will not," amused at her frankness.

"He is just a splendid old man!" she announced to Norah. "And he looks like great-grandfather. I'm going to like him ever so much, and I want you to."

"Oh, yes, I'll like him," responded Norah readily. "I fancied he was one of the high and mighty dukes like that Colonel Leavitt, and I'm glad for your mother's sake that he's comfortable to get along with. It never would have done for him to go to a tavern."

They talked a little at the other house and then retired for the night. And the next day was a busy one. Bernard Carrick took him about and they inspected the blast furnace on which high hopes were built, but the knowledge in those times was rather limited. It struggled along for some years and then better things came in its stead.

The river front was quite a busy place. Yes, de Ronville admitted there was great promise of a thriving city. And over opposite might be another. He knew how the cities on the eastern coast had improved and grown in power. One had only to wait. And his ward was young. Though he wondered a little at the faith of his friend Duvernay. But the old man, not so old then, had in his mind the beautiful estates in the land of his birth, and this land commanding the river and what would sometime be a thriving town attracted his fancy. He had hoped so that Barbe's child would be a son, but he had loved Daffodil with the passion of declining years. Felix had come too late.

M. de Ronville found much to interest him. The eastern shore would not be all of the country. Explorers were sending back glowing tales of western possibilities. Towns were springing up and this was the key to them all. There were large tracts of fertile lands that seemed to have been deserted by the Indians and that were of amazing fertility. After all Felix Duvernay had made no mistake.

And Daffodil found her way to the guest's heart with very little effort. It might have been her beauty, that no one around seemed aware of, or her pretty, winsome manner. She accompanied him and her father on their rides about. She was a graceful and well-trained horsewoman. She had so many dainty legends of out-of-the-way nooks; most of them Norah had grafted on old country tales.

And the evenings at home came to be quite a delight for them all, listening to the glories of his city and the strides it had made. Of the famous men, of the many incidents in the great struggle, its churches and various entertainments as well as the social aspect. Daffodil listened enchanted.

They had come to be such friends that she sat on the broad arm of the chair, but he noted her wonderful delicacy in never dropping into familiarities, while they were so common with her father, and grandad was almost rough with her. True, Barbe had an innate refinement and it was the child's birth-right as well.

She sat there one afternoon. Mother and grandmother were busy preserving fruit for winter use, it grew so plentifully, but they had not mastered the art of keeping some of the choicest through the winter uncooked.

"Daffodil," he began gravely, "your parents have entertained me most delightfully. You have a charming home and I shall hate to leave it. But on Thursday there is a return post and I have overstayed the time I thought would be ample to transact the business I came about. And now I must return."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I do not want you to go."

What pleading, beautiful eyes she raised to him.

Old as he was it thrilled through his pulses.

"But, my child, I cannot live here. And I shall miss you so much. Why I have half a mind to run away with you. I wonder if you would like a visit to my beautiful city."

"Oh, it would be splendid! But—is there any one——"

"To take care of you? There is a housekeeper and a maid, and a jolly, good-natured black woman, who cooks in the kitchen. There are two carriages and horses, and there will be so much to see. It is so different from this."

She seemed to consider. "Yes," rather irresolutely, "if I could go. They would miss me so much here."

"And would you be homesick?"

"Not in a good long while, with you;" she returned with a child's innocence. "And you would surely let me come back?"

"Yes, my dear; even if it broke my heart to do it. I wish you were my little granddaughter."

"Then I would have another grandfather," and she gave a soft, musical ripple. After an instant she caught his hand in hers so plump and warm, and exclaimed—"Oh, I should like to go."

"Dilly; Dilly!" exclaimed the fresh boyish voice; "come and see what I have. Grandad and I have been fishing."

There was a string of shining plump fish that as Felix said still wiggled in their freshness. "Oh, Dilly, if you only were a boy! Grandad says you are not worth a button at fishing."

"They're fine, little brother. No, I don't love to fish. And baiting!" She shuddered as she spoke.

"But you can eat them afterward."

"I couldn't if I caught them myself."

"I wanted a nice lot before the gentleman went away. And Katy and Peg Boyle were out and they are great. It was a fine afternoon for fishing I tell you!"

She went through to the kitchen with him. He was a boy for all kinds of sport, but he abhorred school and was glad when it closed early in the summer, for the boys and girls were needed at home. Sandy Carrick inducted his grandson into all boyish pursuits. His heart was bound up in Felix.

He began to prepare the fish for cooking. Dilly looked out over the wide expanse where trees were thick with leaves and laden with fruit. But she did not truly see anything for her eyes were following her thoughts. To go to a great and wonderful city where they had rung the first bell for independence, to see the splendid houses and the ladies in fine array and to hear beautiful music. But of course she could not go. They would miss her so much. Yet it seemed as if she did very little now.

They had not the strenuous methods of to-day. If those old settlers of Pittsburg with their simple living could come back they would lose their senses at the luxury and striving for gain, the magnificence, the continual hurry and restlessness, the whirl of business undreamed of then. No one was striving to outshine his neighbor. House furnishing lasted through generations. Fashions in gowns and hats went on year after year, and it left time for many other things. Barbe Carrick found hours for lace-making; as was the custom of that time she was laying by in the old oaken chest articles and napery for the time when Daffodil would go to a home of her own. For then it was a great disappointment to the mother if a girl did not marry.

In the old chair Gaspard de Ronville sat dreaming. He should have married long ago and had children and grandchildren. Would there have been one pretty, golden-haired girl among them with a sweet voice and such eyes as were sure to find the way to one's heart, such rosy, laughing lips, sweet for lovers to kiss when the time came? And then—oh, if it could be!

That evening he laid his plan before the household. Might he take Daffodil for a few months' visit, and thereby return their cordial hospitality that had given him a most unexpected pleasure. She would be well taken care of, that he could assure them. And in event of her losing her natural protectors he as her trustee and guardian would be only too happy to take charge of her. He would have her best interests at heart always. And it might be well for her to see a little of the world. She might desire more education than the place could afford.

They were all too much amazed to reply at once.

"Pittsburg is good enough!" flung out grandad. "Her interests will be here. She'll marry here, she'll die and be buried here, and she'll know enough to get to heaven at the last without all the folderols of a great city, as those folks think it because they rung their bell when they cut loose from the mother country!"

"Oh, we couldn't spare her," said the mother. "And, Dilly, you wouldn't want to go away among strangers."

"Oh, no," returned the little girl, and she knew then she had two sides to her nature, and one was longing for the new and untried, and the other clung to what was familiar. There were tears in her eyes, but she could not have told which chord of her soul of all the many was touched.

"I should just die without you!" protested Norah. "I couldn't love a colleen of my own better."

Grandmere said but little. She saw there was an unquiet longing in the child's heart. She could not quite approve of trusting her to strangers, but she knew girls had come from the old world to Virginia and married men they had never seen before, and made good wives and mothers. Daffodil was too young to think of lovers, two years hence there might be danger.

"I'd go!" declared Felix in his most manly fashion. "Why, Tim Byerly has been out to Ohio, which is a real country, not all a river. And Joe Avery went over to the Mes'sipy and down to New Orleans."

"Mississippi," corrected his mother.

"That's what Joe calls it. And men haven't time for such long names. Yes, I mean to go about when I'm big and have some money. Father 'n' I'll set out and discover some new state and take possession of it in the name of the President. Of course girls can't set out to discover things. And Philadelphia has been discovered already."

They had not long to think about it. And as if to make it the more possible an old neighbor, Mrs. Craig, who was going to spend the winter in the distant city with a married daughter, offered to give her a mother's care on the journey. Girl friends came in and envied her the wonderful luck. Most of the neighbors took it for granted that she would go.

As for the little girl she changed her mind about every hour. She had come to care a great deal about M. de Ronville. In youth one responds so readily to affection and he had learned to love her as he had never loved anything in his life. He was charmed with her frankness and simplicity, her utter unworldliness. She seemed to care no more for the great estate over the river than if it had been a mere garden patch. And he thought her too lovely to be wasted upon any of these rather rough, commonplace young men. She must be taught to know and appreciate her own value.

It was only settled the night before. There was no need of much making ready, they could get what she wanted in the great city. And they must allow him the pleasure of providing for her. No one would be wronged by whatever he might do for her.

Grandad had been very grumpy about it, and Norah cried and scolded and then admitted it was the most splendid thing, like a fairy story. Felix was full of delight. And the good-by's were so crowded at the last that her head was in a whirl. She felt as if she should come back that same night and talk over her day's journey.

And so the little girl went out of Pittsburg with good wishes, and perhaps a little envy from those who would like to have been in her place.

Their first stage was in the coach. There was really quite a caravan for the weather was very pleasant for such a trip. Mrs. Craig fussed a little in a motherly way, and M. de Ronville watched her attentively, fearful she might give way to tears. But she had a stunned, incredulous feeling. Two men in the coach were arguing about the feasibility of Philadelphia becoming the capital of the Nation. It should never have gone to New York, which, after all, had been a nest of Tories.

One of the men recalled grandad to her mind and she could not forbear a vague little smile. It roused her to an amused interest and she asked M. de Ronville in a low tone which was right.

"The stout man is right, but he might be less dogmatic about it. I wondered at its going so far North."

Mrs. Craig was quite chatty and a very sensible body who saw several amusing things outside of the coach. All the passengers had brought luncheons along and they stopped by a wayside spring for a refreshing drink and to water the horses. Most of the travellers took a little walk around to rest their limbs. And then on again. The afternoon seemed long to Daffodil, though M. de Ronville entertained her with some reminiscences of the war and before that time, and how queer and unpromising the first beginnings were, and about William Penn, whose dream and desire had been "A fair roomy city with houses set in gardens of greenery," and Benjamin Franklin, who had done so much brave work for the country.

The post road had been made very tolerable. The darkness dropped down and the woods seemed full of strange things that made her shiver. Then they stopped at an inn—taverns they were called in those days—and had a good supper.

"Are you very tired?" asked M. de Ronville with much solicitude.

"Not so much tired as stiff. I think I never sat still so long even at school," and she smiled.

"It's a rather long journey, and I hope," he was going to say, "you will not be homesick," but checked himself and added, "that you will not get clear tired out. I will see if we cannot get some horses for to-morrow. That will make a change."

"Oh, I shall like that," her face in a glow of pleasure.

The supper was very good and she was healthily hungry. Mrs. Craig found some amusement to keep up the little girl's spirits, and she fared very well until she was safe in bed beside her kind companion. Then she turned her face to the wall and her mind went back to all the nights in her short life when she had been kissed and cuddled by mother or grandmere, or for the last ten days by Norry, and now she suddenly realized what the separation meant.

The glamour was gone. She could not go back. Oh, why had she come! She wanted to fly to the dear ones. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her nightdress, and sighed very softly, but she need not have minded, for Mrs. Craig was gently snoring.

The next morning was bright and clear, but she wondered where she was when Mrs. Craig spoke to her. What a little bit of a room and a tin basin to wash in!

"I hope you slept well. And I never dreamed a word! What a shame, when your dreams in a strange place come true—but you wouldn't want a bad dream to come true."

"No," in a very sober tone.

There was noise enough, but it was not the familiar home tones and Felix bustling about. Daffodil made a great effort to restrain her feelings and laughed a little at some of the sallies.

M. de Ronville was pacing up and down the hall, and he held out both hands, but his eyes wore an anxious expression.

"My dear little girl, I could not help thinking last night that it was very selfish of me to want to take you away from your home and those who love you so dearly just for a bit of pleasure to myself. Did you go to sleep thinking hard thoughts of me?"

She raised her lovely eyes, but the face was sweet and grave.

"Oh, you know I need not have come unless I had wanted to. I didn't think it would be so—so hard," and there was a little quiver in her voice.

"And are you sorry? Do you want to go back?"

"No," she answered with a certain bravery. "I like you very much and you want to do the things that please those you care a great deal for. And I want to see the beautiful city and the wonderful places where things have happened. And I am going to be very happy, only I shall think of them all at home."

"That is right. And I am going to do all I can to make you happy. The journey will be tiresome—I have seldom had to take any delicate person into consideration and I didn't think——"

"Oh, I shall not get tired out," laughing with some of her olden spirit.

He had been upbraiding himself during the night for his covetous desire of having her a little longer. Yes, he would have been glad if she was in reality his ward, if she were some friendless, homeless child that he could take to his heart for all time. There were many of them who would be glad and thankful for the shelter. But he wanted this one.

The riding for awhile was a pleasant change, and they talked of themselves, of M. de Ronville's home, one of the early old houses where he had lived for years, alone with the servants. She had heard most of it before, but she liked to go over it again.

"I wonder why you didn't marry and have children of your own," and there was a cadence of regret in her tone that touched him.

"I supposed I would. But year after year passed by and then I grew settled in my ways, and satisfied. I was a great reader."

"Oh, I wonder if I shall disturb you?" and there is a charm in her accent that warms his heart. "You must have seen that we live so altogether, that word just expresses it, as if all our interests were just the same. And they are. And I shall be—strange. Is the housekeeper nice?"

"Well—a little formal and dignified perhaps. Mrs. Jarvis. And she is a widow without children. Then there is Jane, quite a young woman. Of course, Chloe belongs to the kitchen department. And there is a young man."

There is no new accession of interest. She only says—"And is that all in a great big house?"

"Oh, there are visitors at times. I've had General Lafayette and Count de Grasse and not a few of our own brave men. But they have largely dispersed now, and sometimes I have a rather lonely feeling. I suppose I am getting old."

"Oh, I don't know how any one can live without folks, real folks of their very own," she said with emphasis.

"Yet, the friends have ties and interests elsewhere, and you have no close claim on them. It is not a good thing. Suppose grandfather Duvernay had been all alone those later years."

"Oh, I don't believe he could have lived. He was so fond of us all. And I loved him so. But I couldn't truly think he had gone away. I used to sit on the arm of the chair and talk to him. Do you know just where they go, and can't they come back for a little while? Oh, I know mother would. She couldn't stay away!"

Her eyes had a beautiful expression, almost as if she had a vision of the other world.

"Oh, he was to be envied," exclaimed de Ronville, with deep feeling. His own life looked lonelier than ever.

By noon she was glad to go back to the coach. It had changed some of its passengers and there were two children that attracted Daffodil's interest and put her in a still more charming light.

It was a long and tiresome journey with one wild storm and some cloudy days, but at last they reached the much desired city, and were driven out to the end of Broad Street. It was still the "greene country towne," although it had taken on city ways. This house stood then in the midst of greenery, having a garden on both sides, one devoted to choice fruit, the other to flowers and a sort of kitchen garden. It was a square brick house with green blinds, a wide doorway, and a hall running through the centre.

Mrs. Jarvis answered the summons herself.

"A hundred warm welcomes, my dear friend," she said most cordially. "We have missed you so much. I hope you are well?"

"Quite worn with the journey. And this is my ward—Miss Daffodil Carrick."

She held out her hand to the young girl and smiled at the attractive face.

"Will you go upstairs at once? There will be time for a rest before supper. Oh, sir, you can hardly think how glad we are to get you back."

The hall and stairs seemed to Daffodil as if they were carpeted with moss. Four rooms opened on the upper hall. Jules had his master's portmanteau as well as that of the girl, which he set down at the opposite door. Mrs. Jarvis led her in.

"This is my room and you see there is a connecting doorway so you need not feel lonely. You must be tired with the dreadful journey. How people ever ventured before there was a post road I can't imagine. Yet there are families going out to Ohio and Kentucky, as if there was not land enough here to settle. Now I'll send up Jane with some warm water that will refresh you very much. And then you had better take a rest. Supper is at six. You have nearly two hours."

Left to herself Daffodil took a survey of the room. It looked quite splendid to her untrained eyes with its soft carpet, its pretty chairs, its bedstead and bureau of light wood, its clock and tall candlesticks on the mantel, and the dressing mirror that stood on feet and in which you could see the whole figure. Then in a little nook curtained off was a washing stand with beautiful appointments in white and old blue. She glanced around in amazement and was still standing there when Jane entered.

A quaint enough figure in a short, scant frock, short-waisted as was the fashion of the times, of home-dyed blue linen that would have been one of the new colors of to-day where we have gone through every conceivable shade and hue. The sleeves were short, but there were long-armed mitts for summer wear. The cape was of the same material and the straw gipsy hat had a bow on the top and the strings to tie under the chin when it was not too warm.

"Oh, you look as if you did not mean to stay," cried Jane. "Let me take your hat and cape."

Jane was nearer thirty than twenty, a comely, fresh-faced girl with an air of youthfulness, attired in a sort of Quaker gray gown, with a lace kerchief crossed over her bosom. Her hair was banded straight above her ears and gathered in a knot behind.

"Oh, miss, you look fagged out. Mrs. Jarvis said when you'd had a good wash you must go to bed awhile. There's nothing freshens you up like that. It must have been an awful journey! My brother has gone out to Ohio. Do you live anywhere near that?"

"Not so very far away. And the Ohio river runs by us."

"I want to know now! The world's a funny sort of place, isn't it, Miss, with land here and water there and great lakes up North and a gulf at the South that they do say is part of the ocean. Now—shan't I unpack your portmanteau?"

"Monsieur de Ronville wouldn't let mother pack up much, he said things could be bought here."

"Yes, there's no end of them now that we are trading openly with France."

"And I was growing so fast," she continued apologetically, for the two frocks looked but a meagre outfit. One was a delicate gingham made out of a skirt of her mother's when gowns were fuller, the other her best white one tucked up to the waist and with some rare embroidery.

"Can I help you any?"

"No," returned Daffodil in a soft tone and with a half smile. "I'm used to waiting on myself."

"I'll come in and fasten your frock. You'll put on the white one;" and Jane withdrew.

Oh, how good the fresh water and soap scented with rose and violet seemed! She loitered in her bathing, it was so refreshing. Then she did throw herself across the foot of the bed and in a few moments was soundly asleep, never stirring until some one said—"Miss; Miss!"

"Oh! I had a lovely rest. You get so jolted in a stage coach that it seems as if your joints were all spinning out."

"Oh, miss, what beautiful hair? It's just like threads of gold. And it curls in such a lovely fashion! And such dark lashes and eyebrows sets you off."

Jane was such a fervent note of admiration that Daffodil blushed.

She was very pretty in her frock that ended above the ankles, and her fine white linen home-knit stockings were clocked. True her shoes were rather clumsy, but her shoulders made amends for any shortcomings. Her skin was very fair; sometimes it burned a little, but it never tanned.

"Oh, miss, if you had a ribbon to tie your curls up high! All the young ladies wear it so."

"I'm not quite a young lady," archly.

M. de Ronville came out of the library to meet her. The little flush and the shy way of raising her eyes was enchanting. She seemed a part of the handsome surroundings, really more attractive than in the plainness of her own home.

"You are a most excellent traveller," he began. "And I give you a warm and heartfelt welcome to my house. You should have been my granddaughter. What now?" seeing a grave look settled in her face.

"I was thinking. I wish I might call you uncle. It's queer but I never had an uncle with all the other relations. They seem to run in one line," and she laughed.

"Oh, if you will. I've wished there was some way of bringing us nearer together. Yes, you shall be my niece. You won't forget?"

"Oh, no; I am so glad." She seemed to come a little closer, and he placed his arm around her. Oh why did he never know before how sweet love could be! Then he kisses down amid the golden hair. Even her cheek is sacred to him and her lips must be kept for some lover.

There was a little musical string of bells that summoned them to supper. A young man of three- or four-and-twenty stood just inside the door.

"For convenience sake Miss Carrick will be announced as my niece as she is my ward. Allow me to present Mr. Bartram."

Daffodil flushed and bowed. M. de Ronville placed her chair for her. The table was round and very beautifully appointed. She and the young man were opposite. He was rather tall, well looking without being especially handsome. Mrs. Jarvis poured the tea. The two men talked a little business.

"I shall lay the matter before the Wetherills to-morrow," de Ronville said. "I was surprised at the promise of the place and it has a most excellent location. At present it is rather wild, but after seething and settling down the real town comes to the surface. It will not be a bad investment if one can wait. And the Wetherills are not likely to lack descendants.

"I am glad you were not disappointed," returned the young man.

"We know so little about Pittsburg," said Mrs. Jarvis, "except the great defeat of Braddock in the old war. Your people are French, I believe," turning to Daffodil.

"Yes, on the one side. The town seems to be made up of all nations, but they agree pretty well. And they have many queer ways and fashions."

Daffodil did not feel as strange as she had been fearing for the last two or three days that she would. Mother and grandmere would stand a comparison with Mrs. Jarvis, who had the dignity and bearing of a lady.

Some friends came in to congratulate M. de Ronville on his safe return. Mrs. Jarvis was much relieved at Daffodil's quiet manner. And she certainly was a pretty girl. They had quite a little talk by themselves when the guests were gone and Mrs. Jarvis was well pleased that she had come of a good family, as the town set much store by grandfathers and the French were in high repute.

Before M. de Ronville went to business the next morning he made a call on Miss Betty Wharton, who was a person of consequence and had had a romance, a lover who had been lost at sea when he was coming to marry her and the wedding finery was all in order. She and her mother lived together, then the mother died and Betty went on in her small house with a man and a maid and a negro cook. They were in high favor at that time. She had been quite a belle and even now was in with the Franks and the Shippens and the Henrys, and through the war her house had been quite a rendezvous for the patriots. She was an excellent card player, good humored and full of spirits, helpful in many society ways. She could have married, that all her friends knew; indeed two or three elderly beaux were still dangling after her.

"I am come to ask a favor," he said after the talk of his journey was over. "I have brought back with me a young girl, my ward, who will some day have a big and valuable estate as the country improves. Mrs. Jarvis hardly feels capable of shopping for her, and of course does not go about much. She is a charming girl and my father and her great-grandfather were the dearest of friends. M. Duvernay almost rounded out his hundred years. I call her my niece as the French blood makes us kin. Could you oblige me by taking her in hand, seeing that she has the proper attire and showing her through the paths of pleasure? You will find her a beautiful and attractive young girl."

"Why—really!" and her tone as well as her smile bespoke amusement. "French! Where did you unearth this paragon? And is she to have a lover and be married off? Has she a fortune or is she to look for one?"

He would not yield to annoyance at the bantering tone.

"Why, she is a mere child, and has no thought of lovers. She will have fortune enough if times go well with us, and need not think of that until her time of loving comes. She has been brought up very simply. There is a brother much younger. Her father was in the war the last three years. She is not ignorant nor unrefined, though Pittsburg does not aim at intellectuality."

"Pittsburg! Isn't it a sort of Indian settlement, and—well I really do not know much about it except that it is on the western borders."

"Oh, it is being civilized like all new places. We have had to work and struggle to plant towns and bring them into shape. Pittsburg has a most admirable position for traffic and abounds in iron ore as well as other minerals."

"And the girl is presentable?"

"Oh, she is not old enough for society. I did not mean that. But to go about a little and perhaps to a play, and places where it would look odd for me to take her without some womenkind. We French have rather strict ideas about our girls. Come to supper to-night and see her."

"Why, I'll come gladly. I like your young man, too. He has not been spoiled by the flirting young women. It is a shame I did not marry and have such a son to lean on in my old age;" and she laughed gayly.

"Then you can see for yourself. And if you do not like Miss Carrick we will let the matter drop through."

"Yes, I will be happy to come."

M. de Ronville went on to his office. Already there began to be business streets in the Quaker City that was rapidly losing its plainer appearance. This was rather old-fashioned and wore a quiet aspect. One clerk sat on a high stool transcribing a lengthy deed, and young Bartram had just deposited another pile of letters on his employer's desk which was at the far end of the place and could be shut off.

"I think these are not worth your first consideration," he said in a quiet tone. "And here is a list of people anxious to see you to-day. And—if you can spare me a little while—I am due at the Surrogate's office."

"Yes," nodding politely. Then he watched the young man as he walked away with a light, firm tread. There had always been a certain manliness in Aldis Bartram since the time he had attracted his employer's favor and been taken in as a clerk. Then he had an invalid mother to whom he had been devoted, that had been another passport to the elder's favor. On her death M. de Ronville had offered him a home and he was now confidential clerk and might one day be taken in the business which had been made a most excellent one from the Frenchman's uprightness and probity as well as his knowledge and judgment. Many a time he had settled a dispute and made friends between two hot-headed litigants.

He did not read his letters at first but dropped into a peculiar train of thought. He was in good health and vigor, his mind was clear and alert. But he was growing old. And if Betty Wharton in the prime of a delightful life thought a son would conduce to the pleasure and security of her old age, why not to his? Could he have a better son than Aldis Bartram? But he wanted the feminine contingent and he was past marrying. He wanted some one young and bright, and, yes, charming to look at, tender of heart. And here were these two in the very blossom time of life. Why they might fancy each other and in the course of time have it ripen to a real and lasting regard. Oh, the old house would be a Paradise. And if there were children——

He had to rouse himself from the dream with an effort and look over the accumulation. For perhaps the first time business seemed irksome to him, and he had always been fond of it, too fond perhaps.

Men nearly always went home to a noon dinner. He found Mrs. Jarvis and Daffodil in a comfortable state of friendliness, but the girl's eyes lighted with pleasure at the sight of him and her voice was full of gay gladness. No, she was not homesick; she had been in the garden and there were so many flowers she had never seen before and the ripe luscious fruit. There had been so many things to look at that she had not finished her letter, but she would do that this afternoon.

She is a gleam of the most enchanting sunshine in the old house, and her voice soft and merry, the tiredness and discomfort of travelling gone out of it is sweetest music to him and warms his heart. The eyes are very blue to-day, not so much brilliant as gladsome and her rosy lips curve and smile and dimple and every change seems more fascinating than the previous one. There is no young man in the room, it is the outcome of her own delightful golden heart. Oh, any young man might fall in love on the spot.

"Miss Wharton will be in to supper," M. de Ronville remarked casually. "She is not a young girl," seeing the look of interest in Daffodil's face; "but you will find her a very agreeable companion."

"It's queer, but I don't know many young girls. Some of the older ones were married in the spring, and I have been so much with mother and grandmere and Norah that I'm a little girl, a big little girl, I've grown so much."

Her laugh was a gay ripple of sound. He took it with him to the office and her golden head seemed dancing about everywhere, just as it had at home.

"Of course," Miss Wharton said to herself as she lifted the brass knocker, "de Ronville never could be so foolish as to fall in love with a chit of a thing, though I have heard of men training a young girl just to their fancy. He has always been so discreet and punctilious. French are a little different."

No, he had not overpraised her beauty. Betty Wharton admitted that at once. And her manners had a natural grace, it ran in the French blood. Why it would be a pleasure to take her about and have men stare at her as they would be sure to do.

She and Mrs. Jarvis found enough to talk about, and while the housekeeper had gone to look after the tea she turned her attention to Daffodil.

"Oh, I can't help liking the place," the child said with charming eagerness. "Mrs. Jarvis has been telling me about the stores and the gardens a dozen times prettier than this, though I don't see how that can be. They don't seem to care much about gardens at home, they have a few posy beds, but you can go out and gather basketsful in the woods, only they are not grand like these. And there are no such beautiful houses. Oh, there are lots of log huts, really, the older ones, and people are not—I don't just know what to call it, but they do not seem to care."

"All towns improve after a while. The people in New York think they are much finer than we, and then there is Boston—where the people are starched so stiff with the essence of fine breeding that they can hardly curtsey to one another. I like my town the best, having seen them all."

"Oh, how splendid it must be to go about to strange, beautiful places," the child said wistfully, with glowing eyes.

"But I have not been to France;" laughingly.

"Neither have I. But great-grandfather came from there when he was a young man. And he had been to Paris, but he did not live there. And he and grandmother, whom I never saw, had to fly for their lives because they worshipped God in a different fashion from Royalty. And I can talk quite a good deal in French, but I like English better. It seems to mean more."

Miss Wharton laughed at that.

They had a very delightful meal and Betty, by a well known society art, brought out the brightness of the little girl, that made her very charming without any overboldness.

"Why you have unearthed quite a prize," Miss Wharton said to her host later in the evening. "Has Pittsburg many such girls? If so I am afraid our young men will be running after them. You may command me for any service, only I must have her as my guest now and then."

"A thousand thanks. Will you see about her wardrobe to-morrow? There is no need to stint."

"I shall be very glad to oblige you. I suppose you do not mean to turn her into a young lady?"

"No—o," rather hesitatingly.

"Then it shall be simple prettiness."

After that Miss Wharton played on the spinet and sang several old songs. Daffodil wished grandad could hear two that were his favorites, and she was quite sure Norry could not have resisted jumping up and dancing at the sound of "The Campbells Are Coming." Mr. Bartram turned over the leaves of the music, while Daffodil snuggled in the corner of the sofa beside her guardian. And when she went to bed her head was full of Norah's fairy stories come true.

The shopping the next day was something wonderful. Daffodil was quite sure the fairies must have had a hand in it. And such beautiful things, she fairly held her breath over them.

"But, madam, when am I to wear these lovely garments? For mother says I grow so fast, and there is no one to take them afterward."

Betty Wharton laughed many times at the fascinating simplicity of the child.

Then she took her to the mantua-makers, where she was measured, and where she hardly understood a word of what they were saying, but between whiles played with a beautiful yellow cat, who sat on a silken cushion and purred his delight at the touch of the gentle hands.

"Now, you are to come home to dinner with me."

"Did uncle say I might? For mother told me to do nothing without his permission."

"Oh, you darling infant!" She squeezed the slim little body that, after all, was plump enough. It was shocking for a young person to be fat in those days.

"I will make it all right with him."

Miss Wharton's house was much smaller. A square sort of hall, with oddly pretty furnishing, a parlor and a dining-room off it, and all were filled with curiosities that were family heirlooms, beautiful things, for Miss Wharton abhorred ugliness and despised horrid Chinese idols. The dinner was very dainty, and Daffodil wondered how she could feel so much at home.

"And to-morrow we will go out again, but we will drive around, and you shall see the city. What means that sober look?"

"Oh, madam, I shall feel so spoiled with beauty, that I don't know how I shall content myself to go back to Pittsburg;" and her eyes swam in a soft lustre that was almost tears.

"Perhaps we shall not let you go back;" laughingly.

Jane came around for her in the afternoon, and she said, "We missed you so much at dinner time. And ever so many bundles have come for you."

"And I've been so full of pleasure, that any more would run over. Oh, madam, how can I thank you!"

"By coming again. I'll call for you to-morrow."

They walked home, past pretty gardens all a-bloom with summer richness. Daffodil was so full of delight she wanted to dance. In her room was one large box—that was the new hat. A rather fancy straw, and she had not seen it trimmed. It had a wreath of fine roses inside, and larger ones on the outside, and beautiful wide strings of some gauzy stuff, that in warm weather were to float around, but in a high wind they were tied under the chin.

And there was a dainty pair of red slippers, laced across the top, with a red cord fastened diamond-wise, and a pair of black shoes. They were not "boots" then. These came up almost to the ankles, and were laced across with ribbon and tied in a bow. There were some imported stockings, but Mrs. Jarvis declared she had never seen such pretty home-knit ones as the little girl wore, that looked quite as if they were of silk, and the clocks were perfect.

In another package was a beautiful scarf, with threads of gold in the border, and some fine handkerchiefs.

"Mother has some at home, two that have wide borders of beautiful lace, that she made herself. And bibs that you wear over the neck of your frocks. And she is making a lovely skirt for me, that is lace and needlework, and I am to have it when I am quite grown up and go out to tea."

Barbe Carrick had begun to think of her daughter's marriage, and as there was but little ready money, outfits were made at home, and packed away against the time. For most mothers counted on it, even thought of grandchildren.

Daffodil had enough to talk about that evening. Mr. Bartram went out, and for an hour Dilly had her guardian quite to herself. Then two gentlemen came in, and the tired little girl went to bed.

About ten the next morning a pony chaise stopped at the door. Jules came out and took the reins, and Miss Wharton stepped lightly down and was greeted by Mrs. Jarvis.

"I have come for the little girl," she said, "having her guardian's permission. I am going to show her the sights, and make her sick of Pittsburg. We want her here. Why, I never supposed I had such a motherly streak in my nature, or I would have wedded and had a houseful. Or else the child has some bewitchment about her. Jane, put on her new hat and the scarf. The frocks will be here in a day or two."

Daffodil did look bewitching as she stepped into the chaise. Miss Wharton was quite used to driving. They went along Chestnut Street first, past the stores, then looked at some of the old places that were to be historical. Mistress Betty told over many of the war adventures and the coming of the good news.

"And I remember that," said Daffodil. "Grandad was angry about it. He still believes England will get us back sometime."

"Yet your father went to war. How did he take that?"

"I was so little then. I think I didn't know much about him until we heard he would come home. Then I really began to remember. I didn't like him so much at first, and I went to great-grandfather for comfort. Oh, madam, he was so sweet and dear. And when M. de Ronville came, and I put him in the old chair, it seemed almost as if grandfather had come back. And I liked him at once. Now he is to be my uncle, we have settled that."

Then they went out on the beautiful road, where the Shippens and several of the old families had their capacious estates, and their large old mansions. Oh, how lovely and orderly everything looked, the picture of peace and plenty.

"Some day we will go over to Valley Forge. But it is nearing noon, and I must not starve you. I know of a nice place, where ladies often go at noon, and you do not need to have a man tagging after you. Start up, Dolly!" to the pony.

They came back to busy streets. There were Quakers at Pittsburg, but they did not seem so pronounced as here. And there were such fine-looking men, in their drab suits, widebrimmed hats, and they wore knee-breeches and silk stockings, quite like the world's people. Here and there one nodded to Miss Wharton. The elegance and harmony appealed to the child, without her understanding why.

They paused at a house set back a little from the street, with a courtyard of blooming flowers. There was a wide covered porch and a trellis work wreathed with vines. A wide door opened into a spacious hall.

A young colored boy came out to them.

"Pomp," Miss Wharton said, "take the pony and give him a little feed and water, not too much, mind now. He wants a little rest, so do we."

Pompey assisted them out with a flourish, and led the pony up a side way. They walked to the porch, raised by three steps, and Miss Wharton was greeted warmly by several parties.

"Here is a table," said Mrs. Mason. "My dear creature, I haven't seen you in an age. Have you been getting married, and is this his daughter? Did you take him for the sake of the child?"

"Alas! I have not been so fortunate! The child has both parents. And she has just come from Pittsburg. You know, M. de Ronville went out there and brought back—well, it is his grandniece, I suppose—Miss Daffodil Carrick."

The waiter, another colored servant—they were quite favorites in the city for their obsequious politeness—placed chairs for them.

"Pittsburg! Why, that's way at the West in the Indian countries, on the way to Ohio, I believe. What a long journey. And how is M. de Ronville?"

"Rather improved by his journey, I think. Now, Daffodil, what will you have? You ought to be hungry."

"You choose for me, madam;" in a low tone, and with a tint of exquisite coloring.

It kept wavering over the sweet face, for she felt somehow that she was being observed. She wished she had on one of the pretty frocks, but Jane had ironed out this white one, and Mrs. Jarvis had found her a sash. But she was not accustomed to much consideration of herself, and she was hungry. The ladies were prettily dressed, some of them in rather quakerish colors and they had beautiful fans and parasols. It was quite a meeting-place, where they exchanged bits of news, a little gossip, and had most excellent tea.

"Carrick isn't a French name," said Madam Neville, rather critically.

"No. She is French on the mother's side. M. de Ronville's father and her grandfather were Huguenot exiles in the old times. He is her guardian now, and there is some property, enough for a town, I believe. And you know the French once had possession of most of that country."

Betty Wharton knew that would settle her status at once, more decisively than her beauty.

Then some other ladies, having finished their tea, came over for a little chat. Had she been to see the new play? For "The Academy of Polite Science" seemed rather above an ordinary theatre, and Philadelphia had swung back to amusements. Was she going to Mrs. Chew's card party this evening?

"Oh, yes. She wouldn't miss it for anything."

"What a beautiful child!" whispered another. "Will she live here in town?"

"Oh, she is only on a visit now."

"She's too nice to be wasted on such an outlandish place as Pittsburg, where they do nothing but make whiskey."

The pony came round, and the ladies said their good-bys. Since the closing of the war, indeed, in gratitude for French assistance, much honor had been paid to our noble allies.

That evening M. de Ronville went to his card club. But Daffodil had Mrs. Jarvis for audience, and in return heard many wonderful things about the great city.

If Daffodil had not been so utterly simple-hearted and had so little self-consciousness, it might have proved a rather dangerous ordeal for her. In a few days she certainly was the light of the house. Even Mr. Bartram yielded to her charm, though he fancied girls of that age were seldom interesting: either painfully shy, or overbold. She was neither. She seemed to radiate a pervasive atmosphere of happiness, her smile was so full of light and joy; and her sweet voice touched the springs of one's heart.

M. de Ronville had never met with any such experience. A shy young man, he had kept much to his own compatriots. Then he had devoted himself to business, with a vague idea that when he had made a fortune he would go back to France, that had grown much more liberal in matters of religion. But he had become warmly interested in the new country, and especially the city.

He had been pleased with the household at Pittsburg, the plain sensible soldier, who was making an excellent citizen, but the two ladies he found most interesting. It was golden-crowned Daffodil that stirred his heart in a new fashion, and made him feel how much had been lost out of his life. And now he had her. A sweet, dazzling, bird-like creature, that gave the house an altogether new aspect.

She went with Jane to call on Mrs. Craig. The daughter was well married, and had four small children, though their house was rather simple.

"And have you cried yourself to sleep with homesickness?" asked Mrs. Craig. "I've heard it is rather quiet in the big house where you are, with only a few grown people. True, Mr. de Ronville is like a father or, perhaps, a grandfather would be nearer, and you have been used to elderly men."

"Oh, madam, it is delightful. I like him so much. I did at home, or I never could have come. And Mrs. Jarvis is nice and pleasant, and tells me what is good manners for little girls, and Jane spoils me by waiting on me."

"Madam, indeed!" laughed Mrs. Craig. "Why, you make me feel as if I belonged to the quality!"

"They call the grown-up ladies that, the elder ones I mean. And there is one who has been so good to me, Miss Wharton, who bought my new clothes, and tells me what to wear, and things to say that are the fashion here. I think we have not much fashion at home. She takes me out, and, oh, there are so many things to see. And now uncle has hired a pony, and I ride with him in the morning, and we all went to a play, where the people made believe they were part of a story, and I was charmed, for it seemed so real. And there was a fine concert, I never heard so many instruments. And going to church is quite grand. I wish we had a lovely church at home. Oh, I hardly have a moment, but I do think of them all, and how wild Felix will be over all I shall have to tell him."

"I'm afraid you won't want to go back."

"Not go back to mother and all the others? Why, every day makes it one day nearer;" and the lovely light in her face showed she was not forgetting them.

"I am going before real cold weather. It would be too hard a journey to take in winter. But I find it very pleasant, too."

"And the stores are so full of beautiful things. People must be very rich, they spend so much money."

"It is a big town, and there are many people."

"And one can't help being joyous and happy." She looked as if she could dance or fly. "And uncle likes me best to be gay, and I should be ungrateful to mope when so much is being done for me."

"Yes, that is true."

"And next week Miss Wharton is going to take me to a grand out-of-door party of young people. Mrs. Pemberton came and gave uncle the invitation for me, and he has promised to come in the evening to see us, and to fetch me home."

"Oh, but they're on the Schuylkill! Well, you are going among the quality. You'll never do for Pittsburg again."

"But I shall do for father and mother, and I shall have such fun hearing grandad scold about all the doings, and say that I am spoiled, and not worth a pewter platter. And then he will hug me so tightly that it will almost squeeze the breath out of me."

She laughed so merrily and her face was in a glow of mirth and mischief. Then Jane came for her, though she was quick about learning the city streets. But M. de Ronville thought her too precious to be trusted out alone, though now the town was safe enough.

The place was like a picture by some fine artist, and the midsummer coloring, the shade of the tall trees, the great beds of flowers made it lovely, indeed. There was a space of greensward that ran down to the river, then a series of steps up the terrace, where a large level lawn with another row of steps led and a wide porch, with fluted columns. The house was large, and hospitable of aspect. Now it was filled with graceful figures, flitting to and fro, of all ages, it seemed. For it was quite a notable occasion.

There were two Pemberton sons, one married; then Miss Bessy, who was eighteen; Mary of sixteen, and Belinda, a growing girl, whose birthday was the same as Bessy's, though there was five years between them. This is why young people are asked to the birthday party. And the mothers of the girls, the brothers, and other young men. The tables will be set out on the lawn, three of them.

Bessy was to be married early in the autumn, and lovers in those days were in no wise abashed by their engagement. Mr. Morris hovered about his betrothed, young Mr. and Mrs. Pemberton had not outlived their honeymoon. There were other engaged couples, and quite a merry crowd of children.

Betty Wharton glanced over the group, as they ascended the steps. Not a girl was as handsome as her protégée. They had come in a coach, and the child had just a light scarf thrown over her shoulders. Her frock was of some white crapy stuff, the bodice cut square in the neck after the fashion of the day, and edged with a bit of lace; the short waist defined with a soft blue silk sash. Her curls were caught up high on her head, with a blue bow, and every movement seemed to shake off a shower of gold. Where the chin melted in her neck, and the neck sloped to her shoulder, there were exquisite lines.

"That's the little girl from Pittsburg," exclaimed Anton Wetherell. "I didn't suppose they could raise anything like that. She's not so little, either; why, she must be well on to fifteen. Some connection of that old French lawyer, de Ronville. I wonder if he means to make her his heir? I fancy there's a good deal of money."

"Miss Wharton has been making much of her, it seems, and she isn't the one to fall into a mistake."

The elder ladies greeted her cordially. There was such a charming simplicity about her and her enjoyment of everything was infectious. She gravitated to the younger girls, and Belinda was really fascinated with her. They played some games, and she was so ready to assent to what they proposed, so frank to admit her ignorance of some things, that they were all ready to help her and explain. Presently they sat on the grass in a little ring, and asked her about Pittsburg. Was it a great city?

"Oh, you would think it very queer," she said laughingly. "Only the rivers are beautiful, and the hills, and the woods over opposite. But the people"—then she flushed a little, but she was too honest to embellish—"well, they are Scotch, and Irish, and English, and a few from the East, but now those folks are going out to Ohio. And——"

"But you're French," said one of the girls. "Though I thought all French people were dark."

"Mother and grandmere have beautiful dark eyes and hair. So has my little brother Felix. But my father has blue eyes, and I don't know where the yellow hair came from. That was why my mother called me Daffodil."

"What an odd, pretty name. And your hair is beautiful, like silk. Does it curl that way without——"

For little girls and big ones, too, had their hair put up in curl papers, or the hairdresser used tongs.

"Oh, yes, it curls naturally, and tangles, too. When I was little I wanted it cut off, there were such awful pulls. But mother wouldn't, because father was away soldiering, and when he came home he wouldn't hear to it. One grandfather used to call me Yellowtop."

The nearest girl was petting one of the soft, silky curls. Another said, "Can you talk French? I'm studying it at school. It's awful hard and queer."

"Oh, yes. You see, I learned to talk in both languages. Then I had a lovely great-grandfather, who lived to be almost a hundred, and he taught me to read quite well. There are some French Acadians, who come in to see us now and then. But their speech has been mixed up so much. I've been reading a little with uncle. After grandfather died, I almost forgot."

"And are there fine stores and churches, and do you have plays, and entertainments, and parties?"

"Oh, no. It's queer and plain, quite rough, though now they are making nice streets, and people are spinning and weaving. Some of the women make beautiful lace. There's always a May party and a dance; and then a time when the new year begins, and tea drinkings, and some birthdays are kept. No, you wouldn't like it, after such a beautiful city."

"Oh, you won't want to go back!"

"Mother and all my people are there," she answered simply. "But if I had always lived in a beautiful city like this, I wouldn't want to."

By this time the tables were arranged, and they were summoned to the repast. Several young lads had joined the company, and Mary took the head of the children's table. The lawn was a picturesque sight. Afterward some lanterns were strung about, but it was clear and moonlight, which added to the beauty of the scene, and presently dancing began. There was much rambling around.

Miss Wharton found her, and asked if she was having a good time. She had been dancing with two of the boys. "And Mr. Wetherell wants the pleasure of dancing with the young lady from Pittsburg;" laughing.

"But I am not a real young lady. And I don't know all the dances;" in a hesitating tone.

"You do it at your own risk, Anton," Betty said to the young man. "You have been warned."

"I'll take the risk."

He piloted her through very skilfully. Then young Mr. Pemberton asked her. She met Mr. Bartram in this quadrille, and he talked to her afterward. She wished he would ask her to dance, but he seemed very much occupied with the older girls. And presently she spied out uncle de Ronville, and went over to the step of the porch, where he was sitting in a chair. He felt very proud of her. She was so full of enjoyment she fairly bubbled over with delight, as she detailed the pleasures.

"And we must be thinking of going home. That is one of the penalties of old age."

"Oh," with a kind of riant sweetness in her voice, "if you could go back halfway, and I could come on halfway, wouldn't it be delightful! But I get sleepy often in the evening, not like to-night;" as an afterthought. "I suppose that comes of living in a country place, where people go to bed at nine! But you sometimes go to bed quite late."

Yes, if they could meet halfway! Oh, what a foolish old man!

It has been a delightful evening, and Miss Wharton joins them. "Daffodil, you have had honors enough to turn your head. M. de Ronville, are we spoiling her?"

He gave her a fatherly look, and taking her soft little hand in his, they rose together.

"Will you go home in our coach?" he asked of Miss Wharton.

"Very glad, indeed, my dear sir, I am rather tired. Our party began early."

There were a good many adieus to make, and some very flattering invitations for Daffodil. They put Mistress Betty down at her own door, and when they reached home M. de Ronville gave her a tender good-night.

"It was splendid, Jane," she said as the finery was being removed. "And I danced with several of the young men. I didn't quite know how, but I thought of Norry's stories about the fairy dances in the moonlight, and I guess the real moonlight helped."

"I don't believe there was as pretty a girl among them all," declared Jane admiringly.

It was late when Mr. Bartram came in, and he had enjoyed himself as well.

But it was not all dissipation. There were evenings when Daffodil read French to her host, and he corrected any faulty pronunciation. At other times it was the newspaper. She had such a clear young voice, and she did everything with such charming cheerfulness. The rides with him in the morning were a delight. And though her figure had not rounded out, there was something exquisite in the virginal lines. She did not realize herself that she was a big girl now, so gradual was the change, and she had been a little girl all her life to those at home. He thought it was the French blood, as he could recall the girls of his youth, with their pretty deference, but it is the little admixture of Irish that makes her so winsome and frank.

Yet there were times when Daffodil was surprised at herself, and the strange feelings and stronger emotions that would flash across her. Was it the wider life, the variety of people and incident, the deeper and more comprehensive tone of the talk, and the new pleasures of the higher type?

There was no special dividing line in those days. Little girls wore ankle-length frocks, so the tucks were let out as they grew taller. After a little the hair was put up high with a pretty comb discarded by an older sister. When she had a lover, the next younger girl came to the fore.

"If the child was two years older I might make an excellent match for her," thought Betty Wharton. "But she isn't thinking about lovers or admiration. She will be very lovely presently, when she knows how to use those heart-breaking eyes and that dangerous smile. When she comes again—of course, it would be a sin to bury such a girl alive in that dozy, drowsy old Pittsburg!"

The days flew by so rapidly. Letters did not come frequently, postage was high, and there was a sort of secret faith in most people that things were going on well, according to the old adage that "no news was good news." But when a rare letter came, she cried over it secretly for two or three days, and was rather grave, but she thought it ungracious not to be bright and happy when so much was being done for her. Mrs. Craig was planning to go before the autumnal rains set in, and she took it for granted that it was her place to return Daffodil.

The child had been talking this over one afternoon, and a flood of home love had overwhelmed her. Mrs. Jarvis had an old friend to supper and to spend the evening, Jane had gone out, and M. de Ronville had gone to a sort of sociable dinner, with some of the citizens who were interested in the library project. It had proved a rather lonesome evening, and she had really longed for home. She wandered about aimlessly, and presently settled herself in the corner of the vine-covered porch, and yielded to the beauty and fragrance of the night. Everything had a richer aspect and meaning to her. It was moonlight again. The tall trees seemed outlined in silver, and the flower-beds were transformed into fairy haunts. Only a few stars were out, they were larger and more golden than usual. She drank in the honeyed fragrance all about her, and it seemed a land of enchantment.

Some one came into the library, but did not make a light. She heard M. de Ronville's low, but clear-toned, voice.

"I have wanted to talk this matter over with you. There need be no hurry, one or two years here will answer. You see, I am getting to be an old man. Latterly I have come to long for some one of my own, that I could go down the valley of life with, and who would care to make the journey more cheerful. You have been almost like a son to me. I should like you to be that, indeed. And this child has grown very dear to me. To think of you both going on here in the old house when I have left it, would give me my heart's desire. She is lovely, she is sweet, and has a most admirable temper. Then those people are in comfortable circumstances, and of the better class. You know it is a trait of our nation to be deeply interested in the marriage of our children, to advise, often to choose for them, with our wider experience."

"But she is such a child, eager, unformed, and I have thought of some one, companionable, with a wider education——"

That was Mr. Bartram's voice.

"We can remedy all that. I could have her here, and I think she is an apt scholar. She is well up in French, and that is quite in demand now. She could be trained in music, she has a sweet voice. And she is very graceful. If you could see the indifferent manners of most people in that queer, backward town, you would wonder at her refinement, her nice adjustment. Her mother, the Duvernay people, are high-bred, yet in no wise pretentious."

There was a brief silence, then the young man began.

"Mr. de Ronville, you have been the best and kindest friend a young man could have. I owe you a great deal. But I would not like to bind myself by any such promise. I have an old-fashioned notion that one must or should choose for one's self, and another perhaps foolish one, that I should like to win the woman I marry, not have her take me because some one else desired it. She would naturally be impressionable——"

All this talk was about her. She just realized it. She had listened as if some one was reading out of a book. She started now, and light and fleet as a deer flashed across the porch and up to her own room, in a queer, frightened state, hardly knowing what it meant, and yet vaguely suspicious. She had not been especially drawn to Mr. Bartram. He treated her quite as a child, sometimes teased, and evoked quick, mirthful replies, at others passed her by indifferently. All her experience had been with boys, and men of middle age, and she had no idea of lovers. Did uncle de Ronville mean that she should come here and love, and then be married to Mr. Bartram!

She was suddenly and unreasonably homesick for ugly old Pittsburg. The shops and the drives, the gayeties and delights, had lost their charm. If she could fly home to her mother's arms! If she could sit on her father's knee and have him hug her to his heart, or even grandad's rough love. And Norah, and Felix, and grandfather Bradin, who took her out in his boat, and sang funny sea-going songs. No, she couldn't come here to live!

Yet it was curious the next morning. Everything seemed exactly the same. Uncle said, "Will you get ready for your ride?" in that gentle, courtly manner, and they went off together. Mr. Bartram had been very quiet, she had hardly ventured to raise her eyes to him.

Oh, maybe she had fallen asleep and dreamed it.

Mary Pemberton came over early. A host of girls were going to have a picnic up the river, and Belinda wanted her. They would bring her back by five in the afternoon. It was to be just a girls' party, only her brother would be there to see that Darius, the black servitor, attended to them properly.

It was a bright, jolly day, with swinging, and a gipsy campfire, playing tag and telling riddles, and even running races. And she was so joyous talking it all over that evening, M. de Ronville felt he could never let her go. Could he persuade her to stay? Young people were fond of pleasure, and after this Pittsburg would be dull.

All the week the desire in Daffodil's heart had grown into absolute longing to go home. Yet she cares so much for them here: Uncle, Mrs. Jarvis, Miss Wharton, and a number of other people. But how could the return be planned. No one had suggested such a thing.

Providence comes to her assistance, opening the way in the shape of Mrs. Craig, who stays to supper, as she has a matter to lay before M. de Ronville. And that is, that she has finished her visit, and desires to return before the autumnal rains set in, while the going is still good. And she will take Daffodil.

"I am afraid we can't spare her," returned M. de Ronville. "She has become such a part of our household."

"But I must go home sometime," said the child with a quick gasp in her breath.

"Are you tired of us?"

"Tired!" She came and placed her arm caressingly over his shoulder. "Oh, I have never been tired, but there is mother and—the rest," with a tremble in her voice, while her eyes had the softness of coming tears. "Think how long I have been away!"

"And they've had many a heartache, I dare say. I don't know how they could spare you long. Of course, where your daughters marry it is a different thing. You resign yourself to that," said Mrs. Craig.

"When did you think of starting?"

"Well, so as to miss the equinoctial." People pinned their faith to its coming regularly in those days. "And perhaps no one would care to take such a journey if they had no need, and she couldn't come alone."

"No;" in a grave, slow tone. "We must talk it over. I've thought of her staying in the winter and going to school, perhaps. And you might study music," glancing at her.

"Oh, you are very good. But—I ought to go."

"Yes. You've had a nice long time, and lots of going about, I've heard. I hope you have not been spoiled. And you are the only girl your mother has. Then she had you so long before Felix came and while your father was away, and I know she's missed you sorely."

The tears did come into Daffodil's eyes then.

After Mrs. Craig had gone, her guardian drew her down on the sofa beside him.

"Daffodil," he began, "I have come to love you very dearly. There has been no one in my life to call forth any special affection. There might have been, I see now that there should have been. It is along the last of life that we feel most of the need of these ties. And if you could give me a little——"

"Oh, I do love you. You have been so kind, and given me so many pleasures. But not altogether for that. I liked you when you first came, you know. There was something—I can't quite express it—even if I had not come to Philadelphia, I should have thought of you so often. And it has been such a delightful visit. But I know mother has missed me very much, and she has the first claim. And oh, I want to see her."

The longing and piteousness in her tone touched him. She was not all lightness and pleasure-loving.

"My dear, it is hard to give you up. Child, why can you not divide some time between us, and let me do for you as a father would. They have Felix—and each other. They have parents as well. And I am all alone. It would be a joy to my latter years to have some one to care for, to share my almost useless fortune, and my home."

She leaned her golden head down on his shoulder, and he knew she was crying.

"Oh," she sobbed, "it is very hard. I do love you. But, you see, they have the best right, and I love them. I am torn in two."

Yes, it was selfish to try her this way. He had dreamed of what might happen if he could keep her here, a girl sweet and lovely enough to charm any one. But it was wrong thus to covet, to make it harder for her.

"My child, it shall be as you wish. Sometime you may like to come again. My home and heart will always be open to you, and I shall study your best interests. When you want any favor do not hesitate to ask me. I shall be only too glad to do anything."

"Oh, do not think me ungrateful for all this love and kindness. Every day I shall think of you. Yes," and the brightness in her tone thrilled him. "I may come again if you want me——"

"I shall always want you, remember that."

M. de Ronville was not the only one who made an outcry. Miss Wharton took her to task.

"Daffodil, you are not old enough to realize what a foolish girl you are, and so we must not be too severe. Mr. de Ronville is a rich man, a fine and noble one as well. I have no doubt but that he would leave you a handsome portion, for he loves you sincerely. And think of the advantages of a city like this. But when you go back to Pittsburg, you will see a great difference. If all is true, there is no society, no interest for such a woman as you may become with proper training, such as you would get here. You are—yes, I will say it, too lovely to be wasted on a place like that. I am really vexed with you."

The tears stood in her beautiful eyes.

"Oh, one can't be angry with you, you are so sweet! A year or two hence you could have no end of admirers at your feet, and take your pick of them. I hate to give you up. I want to see you a queen in society, you lovely, winsome, short-sighted thing! I don't believe you have a bit of vanity, and they say no girl child was ever born without it. I shall make your uncle, as you call him, keep track of you, for I shall want to know where you throw away your sweetness. I believe if I was Mr. de Ronville I would offer to buy you from your father."

"Oh, he couldn't."

It sounded as if she said it exultantly.

Jane bemoaned the proposed departure as well.

"The house will feel just like a funeral when you have gone out of it, Miss Daffodil. You've been like the sunshine floating up and down. We never missed it on the rainiest day, for there was your flashing golden head. And, oh, I wish you could stay and, grow up a young woman, and go to parties, and then have a splendid lover. Oh, dear!" and then Jane broke down crying.

Poor Daffodil's heart was torn by the regrets. It seemed as if uncle was the only one who was like to help her bear the parting, and he was so tender that at times she almost relented. Mr. Bartram did not count. He was polite, and to a degree sympathetic. He did not tease her, nor laugh about Pittsburg, that would have made her indignant now.

She had come with such a little parcel, now there was a trunk to be packed. M. de Ronville slipped in some dainty little boxes that were not to be opened until she reached home. And at last the day came, and there were sad enough good-by's.

There was a new Post coach in its shining paint, and four stout horses. Mr. de Ronville pressed Daffodil's hand the last one, but he turned his eyes away. Yes, the light of his house had gone. But he could not give up all hope.

Oh, how queer it looked at Old Pittsburg, after the fine city she had left. Daffodil almost shrank from the sight of the old dilapidated log houses, the streets that were still lanes. But there were the two households to greet her, with not a change in them. Oh, how dear they were! The familiar room, the chair so endeared to her, the high shelf, with its brass candlestick, and there in the corner her mother's little flax wheel.

"We were so afraid they'd keep you," said Felix. "Didn't they want you to stay?"

"Ah, yes," and the tears came to her eyes.

"And you look queer, changed somehow. Your voice has a funny sound. And I want you to tell me all about Philadelphia. Did you see that Mr. Benjamin Franklin, and the men who signed the Declaration of Independence?"

"Mr. Franklin was abroad. And they don't all live there. I believe I saw only three of them. But there was Governor Mifflin. And they hope sometime to have the Capitol there."

"Felix, let your sister have a little rest. There will be days and days to talk. Dilly, are you not tired to death? Such a long journey as it is. I don't see how Mrs. Craig stood it."

"Yes, I am tired," she answered. How plain her room looked, though it had been put in nice order with the best knitted white quilt on her bed, and a bowl of flowers on a pretty new stand grandfather Bradin had made. She hung her coat in the closet, and took off the frock she was so tired of, glad to change it for a fresher one.

"Now you look natural," declared grandmere. "We have our little girl back, but it does seem as if you had grown. And, oh, how glad we are to have her!"

There certainly was some mysterious change. Her mother studied it as well. It seemed as if the little girl had vanished, one could almost imagine the seven years had come and gone, and she had been to fairyland. But she put her face down on her mother's shoulder and cried.

"Dear, are you glad to see us all again, to come back to us? For I have had a heart-breaking fear that I know it must have been delightful there, and Mr. de Ronville had a great love for you. Oh, I really wonder that he let you come."

"He wanted me to stay—yes. To stay and be educated in music and many things. It is so different there. I don't know that I can make you understand."

"Dear," subjoined her mother, "he wrote to us. It was the kindliest letter. If he had persuaded you——"

They clung more closely together, each answering with the pressure. But she made no mention of Mr. Bartram. The talk had not been meant for her ears, indeed, she did not rightly understand the real desire that underlay it.

"Now you must rest awhile," said her mother. "There will be a crowd in to supper."

Felix had been denied the pleasure of a half holiday. "You will have time enough to see your sister," Barbe said to the importunate boy. "She is going to stay at home now."

Daffodil did have a nap and awoke refreshed, though she still looked tired and pale.

"Put on one of your pretty frocks," said her mother, with a touch of pride. Indeed, much as she had missed her darling she had enjoyed the honor. Not every girl could have such an opportunity to see the great city where so many notable events had happened. There were few formal invitations in those early days. Evenings were generally given over to pleasure, for the day was devoted to work. You were sure of a welcome unless somewhere there was a family feud and even that was often overlooked after a few glasses of whiskey. So there were guests in—to supper. Daffodil was inspected, questioned, commented upon in a friendly fashion. They drank to her health, to the fact of her return safe and sound, for, after all, was not a big city where they had all sorts of dissipations dangerous.

But all that was nothing to the evening. Then there was a crowd. Grandad did get very merry and dance a jig, the laughter grew uproarious. Dilly shrank with a fear that was half disgust.

Barbe caught Norah's arm presently.

"Ask them over to finish their merriment," she said persuasively. "Daffodil is very tired and must go to bed."

She looked like a little ghost now and her eyes were heavy.

"Yes, yes; we ought to have a little thought," and Norah rapped on the table and gave her invitation, which was cordially accepted.

"Dear little daughter," began her father. "It's rather wild and rough, but it is their idea of a good, hearty welcome. And you must pardon grandad. He has a warm, loving heart."

"Oh, yes; I know all that. But I am tired." And her voice was full of tears.

"Oh, child, it would be hard to have you outgrow us. And I love you so! I had such hard work to win your love in the beginning. But you don't remember."

"Oh, yes, I do. Was I dreadful? I think I couldn't love any one all at once. And I didn't like mother to care so, when she had loved me best. But I know better now. Her love for me is different from her love for Felix and her love for you. Oh, I am glad to be back." And she clung to him convulsively.

He hoped in his heart she would never go away again. There were some promising beaux in the town. Of course she would marry. He wouldn't want his little girl to be an "old maid."

She said a long prayer that night, it seemed as if there had never been so many things to pray for. Then she crawled into bed and cried softly, she did not know why. Did she wish herself back?

Was it that the place had changed so much or was it all in her. Felix seemed such a big boy, good looking too, with beautiful dark eyes and a very rosy face much sunburned. His dark hair was a mass of clustering curls, they inherited that from their mother. But he talked with his mouth full, he clattered his knife and fork, dropped them occasionally, and asked more questions than one could answer in an hour.

She looked up at her father and smiled her approval. He understood it was that. He had some gentlemanly ways and she was very glad that M. de Ronville had not been shocked by the rude manners that obtained largely in the town. Grandmere waited on the table for there was generally a second cooking. People had stout appetites in those days.

It seemed to her the trees had grown, they were longer armed. And here was the pretty flower garden a-bloom now with marigolds, which were not field flowers. There were large balls of pale yellow and deep orange, bronze ones with a pile as if made of velvet. How beautiful they were. Not a weed was to be seen.

It was a half-cloudy day, not dark or sullen, but with friendly gray under roof. She put on her sun-bonnet, her mother had it starched and ironed for her. Up at the back of the house it was still wild land, a sloping hill, a tangle of summer growth rhododendrons half smothered with it. She threaded her way up, then there was a long level of stubble turning brown. Far to the north vaster bulks loomed up. There was a great world beyond. What if some day it should be cities like Philadelphia. And—people, men and women living in pretty houses and having nice times.

It was a beautiful world, too. There was the fragrance of wild grapes in the air, the sweetness of dying clover blooms and the rich autumnal smells. She drew long breaths and broke into song with the birds. Then she started and ran. How little the houses looked down there!

"Oh," she cried in dismay as she ran through the open doorway, "is it dinner time. I've been up in the woods. It is beautiful."

Her mother looked up smilingly. She had been paring apples to dry and had a great tubful. They strung them on a cord and hung them out in the sunshine to dry. Grandmere had the dinner ready to dish up.

"Oh, I could have been stringing the apples!" she said remorsefully. "And I've been way up the hill. I wondered if it would look so lovely to me. For the Schuylkill is like a dream, but our rivers are finer than the Delaware."

"Don't worry about work so soon. You must get used to it by degrees. And get rested over the journey. Janie and Kate Byerly were in. They want you to come to supper to-morrow night. Janie has a lover and she's promised. 'Tisn't a good sign when the youngest goes off first."

"Why, Janie isn't——" in surprise.

"She was fifteen a month ago;" said grandmere.

"Would you want me to get married?" she asked soberly, recalling the talk she could not confess for honor's sake.

"We are in no hurry," said grandmere. "Though I approve of early marriages. You settle to one another more easily. And women are happier in their own homes."

"I'll get father to put up an addition and bring my husband here;" she rejoined with a kind of reckless gayety. "I couldn't go very far away from you."

Her mother glanced up with fond eyes. And just then her father entered.

Most people at that time were little given to caressing ways. But his own had been much dearer to Bernard Carrick after his three years' absence, and now he kissed his daughter, taking her sweet face in both hands.

"Why, you look fresh as a rose. I half expected to find you in bed. Are you equal to a ride this afternoon?"

"Oh, yes; only—mother——" glancing at her.

"Can't mother spare you?"

"Yes, yes. There will be time enough to work, child."

Her mother was made very happy at the deference.

Felix did not always come home at noon.

"They were pretty gay last night," he began apologetically. "Seen grandad this morning?"

"No, I went up in the woods. I wondered how it would look to me. It was beautiful. And it was a shame not to run over there first."

"Well, you may go a bit before we start. I have some papers to look over. We're in a great wrastle about some whiskey business. And now a man has to hold his tongue sharp if he isn't on the right side."

"You are on the right side?" She looked at him with laughing, trusting eyes.

"I wouldn't dare go agin grandad," he laughed back.

It was the old time to her. The cloth was coarse homespun partly bleached; they had some fine ones laid away for the little girl's outfit; the dishes were a motley lot, some pewter plates among them. The pretty accessories that she had become so accustomed to were missing. Was it this way when M. de Ronville was here? She colored vividly.

"I'll get up, Doll," her father said, "and stop for you." So she ran down to the other house.

Norah kissed her effusively.

"I'm glad you weren't in this morning. I was on thorns an' briars all the time for fear. The men were in howling an' shouting until you'd thought they'd upset the government. An' they will, too. We're not going to pay tax on our very bread. Why they're coming the old game that they fit about for seven years. And grandad's fierce. He'd turn us all back to England to-morrer."

"I don't know——" Daffodil looked up confused.

"No, I s'pose not. Women has husbands to think for them an' gals needn't think about anything but beaux. Did you have any over there?" nodding her head. "Body o' me! but you've grown tall. You ain't a little girl any more. And we'll have to look you up a nice beau."

"Must everybody be married?"

Norah put both hands on her lips and laughed.

"Well, I don't know as there's a must, only old maids ain't of much account an' get sticks poked at 'em pretty often. I wouldn't be one for any money. I'd go out in the woods and ask the first man I met to marry me."

"How old must you be?" asked Daffodil soberly, thinking of Miss Wharton.

"Well, if you ain't married by twenty, lovers ain't so plenty, and at twenty-four you're pushed out of the door and at thirty you might as well go down. But you're not likely to have to ring the bell for them. My! but you're pretty, only I wish your cheeks were redder. I guess you've been housed up too much. I want to hear all about the sort of time you had! Wasn't the old gentleman a little stiff?"

"Oh, no. He seemed so much like great-grandfather to me. I loved him a great deal. And there was a splendid housekeeper. The maid was sweet and she cried when I came away."

"Little Girl," called her father.

"Oh, are you going to ride away? Come over to-night. Grandad is going to the meeting where they will spout like a leaky gargoyle. Or stay, your father will go too. I'll come over instead."

Daffodil mounted Dolly, who certainly had not grown fat in her absence. Felix had attended to that. "Dear old Dolly!" patting her neck, and the mare whinnied as if overjoyed.

"You haven't forgotten, dear old Dolly;" and Daffodil was minded to lean over and give her a hug as she had times before.

"We'll go down town. We are stretching out our borders. Here is the new dock. We are building boats for the western trade, and here is the shipyard."

It had doubled itself since spring. Everybody seemed hurrying to and fro. Brawny, sunburned men with shirt sleeves rolled nearly to the shoulders, jesting, whistling, sometimes swearing, the younger ones pausing now and then to indulge in a few jig steps. There were boats loading with a variety of freight, but largely whiskey. Carrick took some drawings out of his memorandum book.

"Look them over sharp, Cap'n Boyle, though I think you'll find them all right."

There was the long point, the two rivers flowing into the Ohio, the murmur like the undertone of the sea. And over beyond, far beyond an endless stretch. There were some Indian wigwams, there were long reaches of cornfields yet uncut, a few stacked; apples ripening in the mellow sunshine, a wild kind of fruit, great tangles of grapevine enough to smother any tree.

"It is beautiful," she said with deep feeling. "Oh, do you suppose there'll ever be anything—over there—like a town, houses and such?"

She nodded upward. That was her portion.

"If we go on this way. There's a line for trade between this and Cincinnati all planned out, boats being built, there's coal and iron to supply places around, and they're talking about glass even. We shall be the head centre. Oh, land doesn't cost much since taxes are so light. Yes, some likely young fellow will take it in hand and evolve a fortune for you. Daffodil, you will not go back to de Ronville?"

"To live? Oh, no."

"I couldn't spare my little girl. I want you to marry and settle here."

She seemed to shrink from the thought.

Down here they were working streets. New houses were going up. Store-houses were being built. Carrick had to stop and discuss several openings. And no matter what subject was in hand it came round to the whiskey.

"What is it all about, father?" she asked, raising her perplexed face to his.

"I don't know that you can understand. We were all served with a summons in the summer to appear at court over the other side of the mountains. Crops were just at the point where they would be ruined if left. The distillers were very angry, the farmers, too. They held meetings and decided they wouldn't go. It's a matter of the general government. The country is behind in everything and is striving to meet its expenses. It could not be otherwise after such a war as we have had. The tax is four pence per gallon—it seems a big figure on hundreds of gallons, still they can recoup themselves on the other end."

"And who is right?"

Bernard Carrick laughed.

"There is but one side to be on just now. Grandad is among the distillers and Norah is as hotheaded as he. But women ought to stay out of it. Take pattern by mother and grandmere and have no opinions. You can't help hearing it talked about. I'm glad it wasn't one of M. de Ronville's interests or you might have heard hard things said about us. There now, business is done, let us have a fine gallop over this road."

Dolly went very well for a while then said plainly she could not keep it up.

"You are a good rider, Dilly. I'm glad you did not get out of practice. Your guardian must have been indulgent."

"We had a ride every fine morning. He was very fond of it."

He was glad to have her talk about her visit. The life would be very different here. Not only were all his interests here, and he was getting to be one of the rising men of the town, but the Bradins held the house they lived in and he was as a son to them. Barbe had never been parted from her mother. And though he had gone to his country's call with their consent he knew his own father would never forgive a second defection. No, he must stay here, and his daughter must marry here.

Felix begged her to come out with him and see the great bee tree where father was going to take up the honey some night, but she was tired and curled herself up in the grandfather chair. Her thoughts wandered a little.

"I don't believe you are paying a bit of attention to me!" the boy flung out angrily. "I wish you hadn't gone to that old city. You were twice as good fun before. And I s'pose you won't climb trees or run races or—or do any of the things that used to be such good fun. What in the world did you do there?"

"Oh, I'll try them with you again. But I've been out with father all the afternoon——"

"And now he'll be so taken up with you he won't want me. Girls haven't any call to be out so much with men."

"Not when they are our own fathers?" smiling.

"Well—there's knitting, and spinning, and sewing, and darning stockings——"

"I thought you were begging me to go out and have a good romp with you?"

"Oh, that's different."

She laughed. Then father came in and they had supper. After that until he went out he had to help Felix with sums, then the boy was sleepy, and went to bed.

Daffodil had to talk about her visit. She had been to the theatre twice and to some fine out-of-doors concerts. Then the afternoon at the Pembertons, where the ladies had been so beautifully dressed, and the dance and the tea on the lawn. She had been sent to a dancing class and knew the modern steps.

"And I just don't believe any one can beat grandad;" said Norah with pride. "And stout as he is, he's as light on his feet as a young girl. And about this Miss Wharton and her living alone with servants just as if she was a widow, and she must be an old maid. It's queer they should make so much of her."

"But she's so nice and sweet. Everybody likes her. And her house is so full of pretty things. The gentlemen are always wanting to dance with her and come to tea."

"Well, it's very queer except for a queen. There was a great queen once who didn't and wouldn't get married."

"That was Queen Elizabeth and Virginia was named in her honor."

"Well, I hope you won't get sick of us after a little. But blood's thicker than water;" and Norah nodded confidently to Daffodil's mother.

Then it seemed really strange to go over to the Byerly's to tea. They had been older girls in school. Now they were busy all day spinning and Kate wove on a hand loom. Girls worked through the day and frolicked in the evening. They all seemed so large to Daffodil. They joked one another about beaux. Half a dozen young men were invited. Kitchen and dining-room was all one, and the two tables were put together, and would have groaned with their burden if they had not been strong.

"I want Daffodil Carrick," said Ned Langdale rather peremptorily. "I went to her first party and she came to mine."

"That's whether she wants you," said Janie saucily. "Do you, Daffodil?"

"Do I—what?"

"Want Ned to take you in to supper. We're pairing off. By right you ought to take Kate," to Ned. "She can have some of the younger boys."

Daffodil was rather startled at Ned. He had grown so tall and looked so manly.

"I'll take Archie," she said a little timidly.

Archie smiled and came over to her, clasping her hand.

"I'm so glad," he said in a half whisper. "Oh, Daffodil, you're so pretty, like some of the sweet pictures in a book mother has. Yes, I'm so glad."

Did Daffodil go to school with most of these girls? She felt curiously strange. After the first greeting and the question about her visit, that she was getting rather tired of, there was a new diversion at the entrance of Mr. Josephus Sanders, who was announced to the company by his betrothed. He was a great, rather coarse-looking fellow, with a red face burned by wind and water, and reddish hair that seemed to stand up all over his head. Even at the back it hardly lay down. He was a boatman, had made two trips to New Orleans, and now was going regular between Pittsburg and Cincinnati with a share in the boat which he meant to own by and by. He had a loud voice and took the jesting in good part, giving back replies of coarse wit and much laughter.

Mrs. Byerly waited on the guests, though the viands were so arranged that there was a dish for every three or four. Cold chicken, cold ham, cold roast pork temptingly sliced. White bread and brown, fried nuts as they called them, the old Dutch doughnuts and spiced cakes, beside the great round one cut in generous slices. And after that luscious fruits of all kinds.

"Yes, I am so glad to see you. And you have been off among the quality. But I hope you have not forgotten—" and he raised his eyes, then colored and added, "but you weren't so much with the boys. I do suppose girls' schools are different. Still there were Saturdays."

"I don't know why I lagged behind," and she gave a soft laugh that was delicious. "Maybe it was because some of them were older. Even now I feel like a little girl and I don't mean to be married in a long time. Oh, yes, I remember the May day fun and the races and tag——" pausing.

"And the tree climbing and the big jumps and prisoner's base, and 'open the gates' and 'tug of war.' Ned was famous in them. I liked often to go off by myself and read, but once in a while it was fun."

"Oh, you should go to Philadelphia. There are so many fine books. And many of the people have libraries of their own. My guardian had. And pictures."

He bent his head quite low.

"I'm going some day. That's my secret. I mean to be a doctor."

"Oh!" The eyes she turned upon him thrilled him to the heart. Oh, she was the prettiest and sweetest girl in the room.

But she wasn't glowing and red-cheeked and black-eyed. Then yellow hair wasn't particularly in favor.

The table was cleared and the dessert was grapes and melons, yellow-hearted cantelopes and rosy watermelons, and they snapped seeds at one another, a rather rude play, which made a great deal of dodging. Afterward they went to the best room and had some more refined plays. They "picked cherries," they had to call their sweetheart and stand with him in the middle of the room. Ned chose Daffodil Carrick and he kissed her of course, that made her blush like a peony. And she chose Archie.

But, alas! Archie had to choose some one else. He said afterward—"I had a great mind to choose you again, but I knew they'd laugh and say it wasn't fair. But I didn't care at all for Emma Watkins."

They wound up with "Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley Grows." Then Janie Byerly took her betrothed's hand and stood in the middle of the room.

"Joe and I are to be married in October somewhere about the middle. We haven't set the day yet, but you'll all know it and I want a great crowd to come and see the knot tied. Then we're going to Cincinnati on Joe's boat to visit his folks, and if I like it first-class we may settle there. I hope you have all had a good time."

They said they had in a shout.

"I'm coming over to see your pretty frocks," Janie whispered to Daffodil. "My, I shall be so busy that my head will spin."

Of course Archie had to see her home, but as Ned's girl was already home, he walked with them and did most of the talking, to Archie's chagrin. And he ended with—"I've so much to tell you. I'm coming over right soon."

"Dilly, you're not worth shucks since you came back!" exclaimed the boy in a severely upbraiding tone. "You don't do nothin' as you used, you just sit and moon. Do you want to go back to that old man? I sh'd think you'd been awful dull."

"Do you talk that way at school?"

"Oh, well, a fellow needn't be so fussy at home."

"What would you like me to do? You are off with the boys——"

"That's because you're no good. You don't run races nor climb trees nor wade in the brook to catch frogs, nor jump—I'll bet you don't know how to jump any more. And you were a staver!"

"Girls leave off those things. And you are a good deal younger, and ought to have a boy's good times. I must sew and spin and help keep house and work in the garden to take care of the flowers and learn to cook."

"My! I wouldn't be a girl for anything! Dilly, who will you marry?"

Her face was scarlet. Must a girl marry? She understood now the drift of the talk she had unwittingly overheard. And her cheek burned thinking that she had been offered and declined.

"I'm not going to marry any one in a good while," she returned gravely.

"Tim Garvin asked me——" he looked at her hesitatingly.

"Well?"

"If he might come round. He thinks you sing like a mocking bird. And he says he likes yellow hair. I don't. I wish yours was black and that you had red cheeks and that you'd laugh real loud, and want to play games."

"There are plenty of little girls, Felix, who are ready for any sort of fun."

He spun round on his heel and went off. It had been one of the resplendent early autumn days with a breath of summer in the air and the richness of all ripening things. The call of the wood thrush came softly through the trees with a lingering delicious tenderness. She sat on a large boulder nearly at the foot of a great sycamore tree. She used to have a play-house here. What had changed her so? She did not want to go back to Philadelphia. She would never want to see Mr. Bartram again. In a way she was content. Her father loved her very much, it was a stronger love in one way, a man's love, though her mother was tender and planning a nice future for her.

She did not understand that it was the dawning of womanhood, the opening of a new, strange life different from what had gone before. There was a sort of delicious mystery about it and she stood in tremulous awe. It was going to bring her something that she half dreaded, half desired.

She had gone down by the schoolhouse one afternoon. They had built a new one, really quite smart, and now they had taken off an hour of the last session. The children were out at play, racing, screaming, wrestling, here playing ring around a rosy, here London bridge is falling down, here a boy chasing a girl and kissing her roughly, she slapping his face and being kissed half a dozen times more. Had she ever been one of this boisterous, romping group?

The French blood had brought in more refinement, like the Quaker element. And she had been rather diffident. At home they were more delicate, while they had too much good breeding and kindliness to hold themselves much above their neighbors.

The marriage of Janie Byerly was quite an event. It took place at ten in the morning and there was a great wedding cake with slices for the girls to dream on. Then they went down to the boat in a procession and there was a merry time as the boat made ready to push out. Rice had not come in yet, but old shoes were there in abundance.

There were other marriages and the little girl went to them because she did not want to slight her old companions. Some of the couples set up housekeeping in a two-roomed cabin and the new wife went on with her spinning or weaving and some of them were quite expert at tailoring. There was plenty of work getting ready for winter.

Tim Garvin had been as good as his word and came on Sunday evening. Daffodil sheltered herself behind her father's protecting wing. They talked of the whiskey question, of the Ohio trade, and then there was a lagging, rather embarrassing time. Four elderly people sat around—they generally retired and gave the young folks a chance, but it was Daffodil who disappeared first. And Tim did not make a second attempt.

The Langdale boys had better luck in establishing friendliness. Ned came over in high feather one afternoon. Daffodil was practising a rather intricate piece of lace making. He looked manly and proud. He was tall and well filled out, very well looking.

"I hope you'll all congratulate me," he began in a buoyant tone. "I've enlisted. I'm going to live up at the Fort and begin soldier life in earnest."

"And I do most heartily wish you success," declared grandmere, her eyes lighting up with a kind of admiration at the manly face in the pride of youth. "We shall need soldiers many a day yet, though I hope the worst is over. Still the Indians are treacherous and stubborn."

"And we may have another fight on our hands;" laughing. "For we are not going to be ridden over rough shod."

"But you must belong to the government side now."

"I suppose so;" flushing.

The delinquent distillers had been summoned to Philadelphia and had refused to go.

"This is our very living," declared grandad, who was one of the most fiery insurgents. "Then they will tax our grain, our crops of all kinds. A king could do no worse! What did I tell you about these men! Why, we'll have to emigrate t'other side of the Mississippi and start a new town. That's all we get for our labor and hard work."

"I ought to have waited until this thing was settled," Ned said rather ruefully, studying Daffodil's face. "But I had hard work to coax father, and when he consented I rushed off at once. He thinks there's going to be fortunes in this iron business, and Archie won't be worth shucks at it. He hates it as much as I do, but he's all for books, and getting his living by his brains. Maybe he'll be a lawyer."

Daffodil flushed. She held Archie's secret.

"You don't like it," Ned began when he had persuaded her to walk a little way with him. "You said once you didn't like soldiering. Yet it is a noble profession, and I'm not going to stay down at the bottom of the line."

"No," with a sweet reluctance as if she was sorry to admit it. "It seems cruel to me, why men should like to kill each other."

"They don't like it in the way of enjoyment, but do their duty. And they are for the protection of the homes, the women and children. We may have another Indian raid; we have some"—then he paused, he was going to say, "some French to clear out," but refrained. The French still held some desirable western points.

"Father talks of the war occasionally, and mother shivers and says—'My heart would have broken if I had known that!' And to be away three years or more, never knowing if one was alive!"

No, she wouldn't do for a soldier's wife. And Archie had prefigured himself a bachelor; he really had nothing to fear there, only would she not take more interest in his brother? There were other young fellows in the town, but not many of her kind. Well, he would wait—she seemed quite like a child yet.

Somehow she had not made the same impression as she had in Philadelphia. No one praised her hair or her beautiful complexion or her grace in dancing. It did not hurt her exactly, but she felt sorry she could not please as readily. Only—she did not care for that kind of florid approbation.

Grandmere looked up from her work when they had gone out. "He is a fine lad," she commented. "And they are of a good family. Daffodil is nearing sixteen. Though there doesn't seem much need of soldiers—it is a noble profession. It seems just the thing for him."

"She is such a child yet. I don't know how we could spare her. And her father is so fond of her."

Mrs. Bradin had a rather coveting regard for the young man. And a pretty girl like Daffodil should not hang on hand.

Ned Langdale made friends easily at the Fort. And during the second month, on account of a little misbehavior in the ranks, he was advanced to the sergeantship.

Meanwhile feeling ran higher and higher. Those who understood that the power of the general government must be the law of the land were compelled to keep silence lest they should make matters worse. Even the clergy were forced to hold their peace. Processes were served and thrown into the fire or torn to bits. Then the government interfered and troops were ordered out.

Bernard Carrick had tried to keep his father within bounds. It did not do to protest openly, but he felt the government should be obeyed, or Pittsburg would be the loser. Bradford and several others ordered the troops to march to Braddock's field, and then to Pittsburg. The town was all astir and in deadly terror lest if the insurgents could not rule they would ruin. But after all it was a bloodless revolution. Governor Mifflin, after a temperate explanation, softening some of the apparently arbitrary points, commanded the insurgents to disperse. Breckenridge thought it safest to give good words rather than powder and balls. So they marched through the town in excellent order and came out on the plains of the Monogahela where the talking was softened with libations of whiskey, and a better understanding prevailed, the large distillers giving in to the majesty of the law.

Some of the still disgruntled insurgents set fire to several barns, but no special damage was done. And thus ended the year's turmoil and business went on with renewed vigor. There was also an influx of people, some to settle, others from curiosity. But the West was awakening a new interest and calling for immigrants.

Mrs. Janie Sanders came back with glowing accounts of the town on the Ohio. And now trade was fairly established by the line of boats. And from there down to New Orleans continual traffic was established.

The older log houses were disappearing or turned into kitchens with a finer exterior in front. People began to laugh at the old times when there was much less than a thousand inhabitants.

And though Bernard Carrick still called his daughter "Little Girl," she was quite grown up with a slim lissome figure and her golden hair was scarcely a shade darker. She was past sixteen, and yet she had never had a lover. Young men dropped in of a Sunday afternoon or evening, but she seemed to act as if they were her father's guests. After two or three attempts they dropped out again.

Archie had gone to Philadelphia for a year at a preparatory school, then was to enter college. Ned now was first lieutenant, having been promoted for bravery and foresight in warding off an Indian sortie that might have been a rather serious matter.

The little girl had vanished with the old Pittsburg. She hardly knew herself in these days. Something seemed to touch her with a magic wand. She was full of joy with all things of the outside world, and the spring and the early summer, nature seemed to speak in all manner of wooing tongues and she answered. She took long walks in the woods and came home with strange new flowers. There was not much to read, it was not a season of intellectuality but a busy, thrifty time laying the foundation for the great city of industry and prosperity that was to be.

Barbe Carrick made pretty garments with fine needlework and lace and laid them by in an old oaken chest. Grandmere was sometimes a little impatient over the dreaming child. Another year was going and she had counted on Daffodil being married before the next generation of girls came to the fore. Plain ones, loud, awkward ones were married and had a jollification. Some of them at twenty had three or four children.

She was very sweet, charming and helpful. Grandad had taken the "knuckling down," as he called it, rather hard, but it seemed as if the tax and more came back in increased sales. He was very fond of small Sandy, now a fast-growing boy, but there was a different love for Daffodil, who looked over his accounts, read the paper to him, and listened to his stories as well as his complaints.

"I wish it wasn't so much the fashion for girls to marry," he said one day to Norah. "I don't know how we could spare Dilly."

"And keep her an old maid!" with scorn in her voice. "But it's queer! One would think lovers would buzz about her like bees."

Now and then there came a letter from Philadelphia that she answered with a good long one, yet she wondered afterward what she found to say. That visit seemed such a long, long while ago, almost in another life. And Mistress Betty Wharton had married and gone to Paris, as her husband was connected with the embassy. There were many questions yet to settle.

"Don't you want to go over to the Fort with me, Daffodil?" her father asked one afternoon. He had a fondness for Lieutenant Langdale, and not the slightest objection to him as a future son-in-law.

"Oh, yes," eagerly, and joined him, smiling under the great hat with its flaring front filled in with gathered silk, her white frock short enough to show the trim ankles and dainty feet, and her green silk parasol that had come from Philadelphia that very spring. She generally wore her hair in curls, though it was cut much shorter in the front and arranged not unlike more modern finger puffs. A very pretty girl of the refined type.

Fort Pitt was then in all its glory though the old block house of Colonel Bouquet was still standing, up Duquesne way, and there were soldiers strolling about and a few officers in uniform.

Langdale was on duty somewhere. Captain Forbes came to greet them.

"You'll find the general in his office, Mr. Carrick. May I take charge of Miss Carrick, meanwhile?"

"Yes, I shall be glad to have you."

Captain Forbes was a Philadelphian, so they were not at loss for conversation. Here two or three men were in earnest discussion, there one deeply interested in a book, who touched his cap without looking up. In a shady corner two men were playing chess, one a civilian, the other a young private.

"Well, Hugh, how goes it?" asked the captain.

"Why, I am not discouraged;" laughing and bowing to Daffodil.

"He is going to make a good, careful player, and I think a fine soldier."

"Allow me—Mr. Andsdell, Miss Carrick."

There had come with General Lee and his body of soldiers sent to quell the insurgents, a number of citizens out of curiosity to see the place. Among them a young Englishman, who had been in the country several years seeking his fortune and having various successes. He had tried the stage at Williamsburg, Virginia, and won not a little applause. He was an agreeable well-mannered person and always had excellent luck at cards without being a regular gamester. He made no secret of belonging to a titled family, but being a younger son with four lives between him and the succession he had come to America to try his fortune. Yet even in this new world fortunes were not so easily found or made.

Daffodil watched them with interest. M. de Ronville had played it with an elderly friend.

"You have seen it before?" Andsdell asked, raising his eyes and meeting the interested ones.

"Oh, yes; in Philadelphia. I spent a few months there."

Her voice had a charm. She seemed indeed not an ordinary girl.

"I have been there part of the last year. I was much interested."

He kept a wary eye on the young fellow's moves.

Once he said—"No, don't do that; think."

The other thought to some purpose and smiled.

"You are improving."

A flush of pleasure lighted the boyish face.

"Check," said Andsdell presently. "I had half a mind to let you win, but you made two wrong moves."

The young man glanced at his watch. "Now I must go and drill," he exclaimed. "Can we say to-morrow afternoon again?"

"With pleasure;" smiling readily.

He bowed himself away. Andsdell rose.

"I wonder if I might join your walk? I have met a Mr. Carrick——"

"That was my father likely. Grandfather is quite an old man."

"And figured in the—what shall we call it—émeute?"

Captain Forbes laughed. "That was about it. Yet at one time I was a good deal afraid there would be a fierce struggle. Better counsels prevailed, however. When the army arrived those who had not really dared to say the government was right so far as obedience was concerned came out on the right side. A thousand or so soldiers carried weight," with a half sarcastic laugh.

Andsdell stole furtive glances at the girl the other side of Forbes. What a graceful, spirited walk she had; just what one would expect with that well poised figure.

Then she stopped suddenly and the captain paused in his talk as she half turned.

"There's father," she exclaimed with a smile that Andsdell thought enchanting.

He had met the Englishman before and greeted him politely. After a little talk he slipped his daughter's arm through his and said mostly to her—"I am ready now."

She made her adieu with a kind of nonchalant grace in which there was not a particle of coquetry. He followed her with his eyes until they had turned the corner of the bastion. Then again he saw her as they were going out.

"I should think that girl would have half the men in the town at her feet," he said.

"Oh, Miss Carrick?" as if he was not quite certain. Then with a half smile—"Do you think so? Well, she hasn't."

"She is very lovely."

"In a certain way, yes. I believe our people like more color, more dash and spirit. We are not up on a very high round, pioneers seldom are. It takes a generation or so to do the hard work, then comes the embellishment. They are rather dignified and have some French ways. An old grandfather, the fourth generation back, might have stood for a portrait of the grand Marquis. It is on the mother's side."

"She doesn't favor the French."

"No, but the boy does, a bright, handsome fellow, wild as a deer and full of pranks. It will be hard to tell what race we do favor most. A hundred years hence we will be going back with a sort of pride, hunting up ancestors. At present there is too much to do."

Andsdell went his way presently. He was comfortably well lodged. He had a bountiful supper and then he went out for a walk. There was a young moon over in the west just light enough to bring out the silvery beech trunks and touch the tips of the grasses. The woodthrush still gave his long sweet call at intervals. This path led into the town. He would not go that way. He wished he knew just where these Carricks lived. He fancied her sitting on the porch drinking in the loveliness of the evening.

How absurd! He had seen pretty girls before, danced with them, flirted with them. There were the imperious belles of Virginia, who bewitched a man's fancy in one evening. There were the fair seductive maids of Philadelphia, and so far he had not been specially impressed with the girls of this town. A crowd were coming this way—he heard the strident laughter and loud voices, so he stepped aside.

Dilly was not sitting out in the fragrant air, but trying to explain a lesson to Felix. Neither did she give one thought to the young Englishman. She was glad in her inmost heart that Ned Langdale had been engaged elsewhere. Something in his eyes troubled her. She did not want to make him unhappy. She hated to be cold and distant to her friend, yet when she warmed a little he seemed to take so much for granted that she did not feel inclined to grant. Why couldn't one be satisfied with friendship? Occasionally she heard from Archie. They were eager, ambitious letters and she always read them aloud.

But if there could come any warmer interest Archie never would be content with this busy, bustling, working town, and then they would lose her. Every day she grew dearer to the mother. Geoffrey Andsdell decided he did not like the place very well either. He could not be winning money all the time from the garrison, and no business opening had been really thrust upon him, though he felt it was high time he turned his attention to the fact of making an honest living. He had wasted four years since he left England. It would be folly to return, and when that thought crossed his mind he bit his lip and an ugly look settled in his eyes. He had come to the New World to forget all that.

Yes, he would go back to Philadelphia. There were genteel opportunities there, and he was not a dullard if he had not been business bred.

He was asking a little advice of Mrs. Forbes as they had been sauntering about the hills that were showing bits of autumnal scenery and scattering the fragrance of all ripening things on the air. The jocund song of the birds had settled into a sort of leisurely sweetness, their summer work was done, nest building and caring for the young was over with for the season, and they could review their losses and gains. Somewhere along the stream that wound in and out a great frog boomed hoarsely and the younger ones had lost their fine soprano in trying to emulate him. Insects of all kinds were shrilling and whirring, yet underneath it all there was a curious stillness.

Then a human voice broke on their ear singing a merry Irish lilt.

"Oh, that's Daffodil Carrick. I could tell her voice from fifty others. It is never loud but it carries so distinctly. Let's see where she is."

They turned into the wider path zigzagging through the woods. Yes, there she sat on the limb of a tree she had bent down and was gently swaying to and fro. Her sun-bonnet was held by the strings serving to drive troublesome insects away. Her golden hair clustered about her temples in rings and then floated off by the motion of the swinging, a lovely bewildering cloud. She did not notice them at first; then she sprang up, her face a delicate rosy tint.

"Oh, Mrs. Forbes! And—Mr. Andsdell!"

She looked a startled woodland nymph. He thought he had never seen a more lovely picture.

"Are you having a nice time to yourself in your parlor among the hills? Can't we sit down and share it with you? I am tired. We have been rambling up hill and down dale."

A great hollow tree had fallen some time and Mrs. Forbes seated herself waving her hand to Mr. Andsdell, who looked a little uncertain.

"Oh, yes," Daffodil said. "I have been roaming around also. It is just the day for it. Now the sun comes out and tints everything, then it is shade and a beautiful gray green."

"You were singing," he said, thinking what compliment would not be too ornate. Out here in the woods with nature and truth one could not use flattery.

"Yes." She laughed softly a sound that was enchanting. "When I was little I was a devout believer in fairies. Grandfather Carrick's second wife came from Ireland when she was fifteen, and she knew the most charming stories. You know there are stories that seem true and hers did. I used to feel sure they would come and dance in the grass. That was the song little Eileen sang, and they carried her off, but they couldn't keep her because she wore a cross that had been put round her neck when she was christened."

"And did you want to be carried off?" he asked.

"Yes, I think I did. But I had a cross that I made of beads and named them after the saints. We are not Catholics, but Huguenots. I took my cross out in the woods with me, but the fairies never came."

"There is a great deal of really beautiful faith about those things," said Mrs. Forbes. "And some of the Indian legends as well. Old Watersee has stores of them. Some one ought to collect the best of them. Fairy stories go all over the world, I think, in different guise. They are the delight of our early lives. It's sad to lose that childhood faith."

"Oh, I don't want to lose it all," Daffodil said earnestly. "I just say to myself it might have been true somewhere."

Then they branched off into other matters. The sky grew grayer and the wind moaned through the trees, shaking down a cloud of ripe leaves.

"Is it going to rain?" asked Andsdell.

"I think it will storm by to-morrow, but not now. You see, evening is coming on. We might go down;" tentatively, not sure she was the one to propose it.

The path was beautiful, winding in and out, sometimes over the pile of richest moss, then stirring up the fragrance of pennyroyal. But the streets and houses began to appear.

Barbe Carrick sat on the porch waiting for her daughter, always feeling a little anxious if she loitered, though these woods were free from stragglers. She came to meet them now, she knew Mrs. Forbes and invited them to rest awhile, and they cheerfully accepted. Then she went for some cake and grapes and brought some foaming spruce beer. Even grandmere came out to meet the guests. Andsdell was delighted and praised everything and Mrs. Bradin said with her fine French courtesy—"You must come again."

"I shall be most happy to," he replied.

They finished their walk almost in silence. Andsdell was recalling the many charms of the young girl. Mrs. Forbes was looking upon him in the light of a lover. She could understand that the ordinary young man of the town could not make much headway with Daffodil Carrick. There were some nice men in the garrison, but after all——And it was high time Daffodil had a lover. All women are matchmakers by instinct and delight in pairing off young folks. She was a happy wife herself, but she recalled the fact that the girl was not in love with soldiers.

"Richard," Mrs. Forbes began, looking up from the beaded purse she was knitting, "do you know anything about that Englishman, Andsdell?"

He had been reading, and smoking his pipe. He laid down both.

"A sort of goodish, well-informed fellow, who doesn't drink to excess, and is always a gentleman. He plays a good deal, and wins oftener than he loses, but that's luck and knowledge. Like so many young men, he came over to seek his fortune. He was in Virginia, was some general's aide, I believe. Why are you so eager to know his record?"

"Why?" laughing softly. "I think he is very much smitten with Daffodil Carrick. She is pretty and sweet, a most admirable daughter, but, somehow, the beaux do not flock about her. She will make some one a lovely wife."

"Young Langdale has a fancy for her."

"And she is not at all charmed with military glory. Her father was a good, brave soldier, and went at the darkest of times, because his country needed him, not for fame or enthusiasm. She has heard too much of the dangers and struggles. Edward Langdale is full of soldierly ardor. They have had opportunities enough to be in love, and she rather shrinks from him. No, her husband, whoever he is, must be a civilian."

"Why, I think I can learn about him. The Harrisons are at Williamsburg, you know. And there is a slight relationship between us. Yes, it would be well to learn before you dream of wedding rings and all that."

Still she could not resist asking Daffodil in to tea to meet some friends. There were Mrs. Trent, the wife of the first lieutenant, and Bessy Lowy, young Langdale, and the Englishman. Bessy was a charming, dark-eyed coquette, ready of wit, and she did admire Ned. Andsdell was almost a stranger to her, and in the prettiest, most winsome fashion she relegated him to Miss Carrick.

They had a gay time, for Mrs. Trent was very bright and chatty, and her husband had a fund of small-talk. Afterward they played cards, the amusement of the times. In two of the games Ned had Daffodil for a partner, but she was not an enthusiastic player. And she had accepted Andsdell's escort home, much to Ned's chagrin.

"I did not know whether you would be at liberty," she said simply.

"I'll have an afternoon off Thursday. Will you go for a walk?"

She hesitated, and he remarked it.

"I see so little of you now. And you always seem—different."

"But you know I am quite grown up. We are no longer children. And that makes a change in every one."

"But that need not break friendship."

"I think it doesn't break friendship always," she returned thoughtfully.

"Daffodil, you are the loveliest and sweetest girl I have ever known."

"But not in the whole world," she rejoined archly.

"In my world. That is enough for me. Good-night;" and he longed to kiss her hand.

She and Andsdell came down from the Fort, crossed several streets, and then turned to the east. Philadelphia was their theme of conversation.

"I was such a little girl then," she said, with almost childish eagerness. "Everything was so different. I felt as if I was in a palace, and the maid dressed me with so much care, and went out to walk with me, and Miss Wharton was so charming. And now she is in France."

"Would you like to go to France—Paris?"

"Oh, I don't know. You have been there?"

"Yes, for a short stay."

"And London, and ever so many places?"

"Yes. But I never want to see it again."

Something in his tone jarred a little.

"I am glad you like America."

Then they met her father, who was coming for her, but Mr. Andsdell went on with them to the very door.

"Did you have a fine time?" asked her mother.

"Oh, yes, delightful. Mrs. Trent was so amusing, and Bessy Lowy was like some one in a play. I wish my eyes were dark, like yours. I think they are prettier."

Her mother smiled and kissed her.

All the next morning Dilly sat and spun on the little wheel, and sang merry snatches from old ballads. She wished she were not going to walk with Lieutenant Langdale.

"Is there any wrong in it, mother?" she asked, turning her perplexed face to Barbe.

"Why, not as I see. You have been friends for so long. And it is seldom that he gets out now."

The Post brought a letter from Archie. It was really very joyous. He had won a prize for a fine treatise, and had joined a club, not for pleasure or card playing, but debating and improvement of the mind.

She was very glad they would have this to talk about. And when Ned saw her joyous face, and had her gay greeting, his heart gave a great bound. They went off together in a merry fashion.

"Oh, you cannot think"—then pausing suddenly—"Did you have word from Archie in the post?"

"No, but a letter came for mother."

"You hurried me so, or I should have remembered to bring it. Father thought it so fine. He has won a prize, twenty-five pounds. And he thinks another year he may pass all the examinations. Oh, won't your mother be glad?"

There was such a sweet, joyous satisfaction in her tone, such a lovely light in her eyes, that his heart made a protest.

"You care a great deal about his success?" he said jealously.

"Yes, why not?" in surprise.

"And none about mine?"

"Why—it is so different;" faltering a little. "And you know I never was overfond of soldiering."

"Where would the country have been but for the brave men who fought and gained her liberty? Look at General Washington, and that brave noble-hearted Lafayette. And there was General Steuben that winter at Valley Forge, sharing hardship when he might have lived at ease. It stirs my blood when I think of the hundreds of brave men, and I am proud to be a soldier."

He stood up very straight, and there was a world of resolution in his eyes, a flush on his cheek.

"But you are glad of his success?"

"And why should you not be as glad of mine?" not answering her question.

"Why—I am. But you see that appeals to me the more. Yet I shall be glad for you to rise in your profession, and win honors, only—fighting shocks me all through. I am a coward."

"And he will come back a doctor, and you will rejoice with him. I shouldn't mind that so much, but you will marry him——"

"Marry him! Ned, what are you thinking of!"

There was a curious protest in her face almost strong enough for horror. Even her lips lost their rosy tint.

"What I am thinking of is this," and there was a fierce desperation in his tone. "I love you! love you! and I cannot bear to think of you going to any other man, of any person calling you wife. I've always loved you, and it has grown with my manhood's strength. Archie will always be lost in his books, and his care for others. A doctor ought never to marry, he belongs to the world at large. And I want you in my very life;" then his arms were about her, and clasped her so tightly that for an instant she could make no protest. She pushed away and dropped on a great stone, beginning to cry.

"Oh, Daffodil, what have I done! It is my wild love. It is like some plant that grows and grows, and suddenly bursts into bloom. I almost hated Bessy Lowy taking possession of me in that fashion. I wanted to talk to you, to be near you, to touch your dear hand. All last night I lay awake thinking of you. It was so sweet that I did not want to sleep."

"Oh, hush," she entreated, "hush," making as if she would put him away with her slim hands. "You must not talk so to me. It is a language I do not understand, do not like. I think I am not meant for lovers and marriage. I will be friends always, and rejoice in your success. And it is the same with Archie. Oh, let me live my own quiet life with father and mother——"

"And never marry?"

"Not for years to come, perhaps never. I am not afraid of being called an old maid. For Miss Wharton was delightful and merry, and like a mother to me, though I shall not be as gay and fond of good times. I like quiet and my own pretty dreams, and to talk with the birds and squirrels in the woods, and the lambs in the fields, and sometimes great-grandfather comes back."

Her face was partly turned away, and had a rapt expression. He was walking moodily up and down. Why was she so different from most girls? And yet he loved her. She might outgrow this—was it childishness?

"Well," with a long sigh, "I will wait. If it is not Archie——"

"It is no one. And when some nice girl loves you—oh, Ned, you should find some nice sweet girl, who will be glad of your love. I think girls are when they meet with the right one. And do not think of me in that way."

"I shall think of you in that way all the rest of my life. And if you do not marry, I shall not marry either."

Then there was a long silence.

"Shall we go on?" she asked timidly.

"The walk is spoiled. It doesn't matter now;" moodily.

"Oh, Ned, let us be friends again. I cannot bear to have any one angry with me. No one ever is but grandad, when we talk about the country or the whiskey tax," and she laughed, but it was half-heartedly.

What a child she was, after all. For a moment or two he fancied he did not care so much, but her sweet face, her lovely eyes, the dainty hands hanging listlessly at her side, brought him back to his allegiance.

They walked on, but the glory had gone out of the day, the hope in his heart, the simple gladness of hers. Then the wind began to blow up chilly, and dark clouds were drifting about. She shivered.

"Are you cold? Perhaps we had better go back?"

"Well"—in a sort of resigned tone. Then, after a pause—"Are you very angry with me?"

"Perhaps not angry—disappointed. I had meant to have such a nice time."

"I am sorry. If I could have guessed, I would not have agreed to come."

They paused at the gate. No, he would not come in. The fine face betrayed disappointment.

"But you will come sometime, when you have quite forgiven me," and the adorable tenderness in her tone reawakened hope. After all, Archie was not looking forward to marriage. Jeffrey Andsdell had not even entered his mind.

She went in, and threw aside her hat.

"Did you have a nice walk? You came back soon."

"No, I did not. Ned neither." She went and stood straight before her mother, pale, yet with a certain dignity.

"You did not quarrel, I hope. Is it true he is charmed by Bessy?"

"He asked me to love him. He wants to marry me;" in a tone that was almost a cry.

"Well?" subjoined her mother. The young lieutenant was a favorite with her, worth any girl's acceptance, in her estimation.

"I—I don't understand about love. To give away your whole life, years and years;" and she shivered.

"But if you loved him, if you were glad to do it;" and the mother's tone was encouraging.

"Ah. I think one ought to be glad. And I wasn't glad when he kissed me." Her face was scarlet now, her bosom heaving with indignation, her eyes full of protest.

"He will make a nice husband. His father is devoted to his mother. He has learned what a true and tender love really is."

"Mother, would you like me to marry?"

She knelt down at her mother's knee.

"Oh, my dear, not until you love some one;" and she kissed her fondly.

"Do you think there was ever a girl who could not love in that way?"

"I should be sorry for her; love is the sweetest thing in life, the best gift of the good Lord is a good husband."

Autumn was coming on slowly. Housewives were making preparations for winter. Daffodil was cheery and helpful. Grandmere was not as well as usual. She said she was growing old. There was a great deal of outside business for the men. Pittsburg was a borough town, and its citizens were considering various industries. Every day almost, new things came to the fore, and now they were trying some experiments in making glass. The country round was rich in minerals. Boat-building required larger accommodations. The post road had been improved, straightened, the distance shortened. There were sundry alterations in looms, and homespun cloth was made of a better quality.

Daffodil Carrick watched some of the lovers, who came under her notice. She met Lieutenant Langdale occasionally, and they were outwardly friends. They even danced together, but her very frankness and honesty kept up the barrier between them. He tried to make her jealous, but it never quickened a pulse within her.

Yet in a curious way she was speculating on the master passion. There were not many books to distract her attention, but one day there came a package from her guardian that contained a few of the old rather stilted novels, and some volumes of poems by the older English poets, dainty little songs that her mother sung, and love verses to this one or that one, names as odd as hers. And how they seemed to love Daisies and Daffodils.

She took them out with her on her walks, and read them aloud to the woods, and the birds, or sometimes sang them. Jeffrey Andsdell found a wood nymph one day and listened. He had met her twice since the evening at Mrs. Forbes'. And he wondered now whether he should surprise her or go his way.

She rose presently, and by a sudden turn surprised him.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I have been listening, enchanted. First I could not imagine whether it was some wandering fay or wood nymph wild."

"Oh, do I look very wild?" with a most charming smile.

"Why"—he colored a little—"perhaps the word may have more than one meaning. Oh, you look as if you were part of the forest, a sprite or fairy being."

"Oh, do you believe in them? I sit here sometimes and call them up. There was an odd volume sent me awhile ago, a play by Shakespere, 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' and it is full of those little mischievous elves and dainty darlings."

"That is not it?" coming nearer and looking at her book.

"Oh, it is verses by one Mr. Herrick. Some of them almost sing themselves, and I put tunes to them."

"And sing to the woods and waters. You should have a more appreciative audience."

"Oh, I couldn't sing to real people," and she flushed. "I wonder if"—and there came a far-away look in her eyes that passed him, and yet he saw it.

"What is the wonder?"

"That if you could write verses, songs."

She asked it in all simplicity.

"No, I couldn't;" in the frankest of tones.

"One must know a good deal."

"And be a genius beside."

"What queer names they give the girls. Chloe, that isn't a bit pretty, and Phyllis, that is a slave name. And Lesbia, that isn't so bad."

"I think I have found Daffodil among them. And that is beautiful."

"Do you think so?" She could not tell why she was glad, but he saw it in her face, and what a sweet face it was! He wondered then how such a fascinating bit of sweetness and innocence could have kept its charm in this rather rough soil. Her frankness was fascinating.

"Do you come here often?" he asked presently.

"Oh, yes, in the summer."

"That was when I first met you. I was with Mrs. Forbes. And her little tea was very nice and social. I've not seen you since. Don't you go to the Fort only on special invitation? There are quite a number of visitors. Strangers always come."

"I am quite busy," she replied. "Grandmere has not been well, and I help mother. There is a great deal to do in the fall."

Such a pretty housewifely look settled in her face. How lovely it was, with the purity of girlhood.

The wind swayed the wooded expanse, and sent showers of scarlet and golden maple leaves down upon them. The hickory was a blaze of yellow, some oaks were turning coppery. Acorns fell now and then, squirrels ran about and disputed over them. He reached over and took her book, seating himself on the fallen log, and began reading to her. The sound of his voice and the melody of the poems took her into another land, the land of her fancy. If one could live in it always! The sun dropped down, and it seemed evening, though it was more the darkness of the woods.

She rose. They walked down together, there was no third person, and he helped her with the gentlest touch over some hillocks made by the rain-washed roots of the trees. Then she slipped on some dead pine needles, and his arm was around her for several paces, and quietly withdrawn.

Daffodil laughed and raised her face to his.

"Once I slipped this way, it was over on the other path, where it is steeper, and slid down some distance, but caught a tree and saved myself, for there was a big rock I was afraid I should hit. And I was pretty well scratched. Now I catch the first thing handy. That rock is a splendid big thing. You ought to see it."

"You must pilot me some day."

They emerged into the light. The rivers were still gleaming with the sunset fire, but over eastward it was twilight gray.

"Good-night;" as they reached her house. "I am glad I found you there in the woods. I have had a most enjoyable time."

"Good-night," she said in return.

A neighbor was sitting by the candle her mother had just lighted.

"Dilly, you come over here and write these recipes. My eyes ain't what they used to be. And your mother does make some of that peppery sauce that my man thinks the best in Pittsburg. And that grape jam is hard to beat. Your fingers are young and spry, they hain't washed, and scrubbed, and kneaded bread, 'n' all that for forty year."

Daffodil complied readily. Mrs. Carrick told the processes as well.

"For there's so much in the doin'," said Mrs. Moss. "That's the real luck of it."

Felix went down to the shipyard after school, and came home with his father. To go to New Orleans now was his great aim.

"Grandad wants you to come over there," Mrs. Carrick said to her daughter.

"Then I'll have to read my paper myself," Mr. Carrick complained.

Grandad wanted her to go over some papers. They were all right, he knew, but two heads were better than one, if one was a pin's head. Then she must gossip awhile with Norah, while grandad leaned back in his chair and snored. Her father came for her, and she went to bed to the music of the dainty poems read in an impressive voice.

And when she awoke in the morning there seemed a strange music surging in her ears, and in her heart, and she listened to it like one entranced. But she had gone past the days of fairy lore, she was no longer a little girl to build wonderful magic haunts, and people them. Yet what was it, this new anticipation of something to come that would exceed all that had gone before?

It came on to rain at noon, a sort of sullen autumn storm, with not much wind at first, but it would gain power at nightfall. Daffodil and her mother were sewing on some clothes for the boy, women had learned to make almost everything. It took time, too. There were no magic sewing machines. Grandmere was spinning on the big wheel the other side of the room, running to and fro, and pulling out the wool into yarn.

"Why so grave, child? Is it a thought of pity for the lieutenant?" and Mrs. Carrick gave a faint smile that would have invited confidence if there had been any to give. She could hardly relinquish the idea that her daughter might relent.

"Oh, no. One can hardly fix the fleeting thoughts that wander idly through one's brain. The loneliness of the woods when the squirrels hide in their holes, and no bird voices make merry. And bits of verses and remembrance of half-forgotten things. Is any one's mind altogether set upon work? There are two lives going on within us."

Barbe Carrick had never lived but the one life, except when her husband was with the army, and she was glad enough to lay down the other. Had it been wise for Daffodil to spend those months in Philadelphia? Yet she had accepted her old home cheerfully. And all unconsciously she had worked changes in it to her grandmother's delight. Now her father was prospering. They would be among the "best people" as time went on.

The storm lasted three days. There had been some hours of wild fury in it, when the trees groaned and split, and the rivers lashed themselves into fury. Then it cleared up with a soft May air, and some things took a second growth. There was a sort of wild pear tree at the corner of the garden, and it budded.

Daffodil did not take her accustomed walk up in the woods. Something held her back, but she would not allow to herself it was that. Instead, she took rides on Dolly in different directions. One day she went down to the shipyard with a message for her father. Mr. Andsdell stood talking with him. Her pulses suddenly quickened.

"Well, you've started at the right end," Bernard Carrick was saying. "This place has a big future before it. If it was a good place for a fort, it's a splendid place for a town. Philadelphia can't hold a candle to it, if she did have more than a hundred years the start. Why they should have gone way up the Delaware River beats me. Yes, come up to the house, and we'll talk it over."

Then they both turned to the young girl. There was a pleasurable light in Andsdell's eyes.

Afterward he walked some distance beside her horse. The storm, the beautiful weather since, the busy aspect of the town, the nothings that are so convenient when it is best to leave some things in abeyance. Then he said adieu and turned to his own street, where he had lodgings.

She went on with a curiously light heart. Her father had said, "Come up to the house," and she was glad she had not gone to the woods in the hope of meeting him.

She slipped off Dolly and ran to the garden. "Oh, Norry, what are you doing?" she cried with a sound of anger in her voice. "My beautiful pear blossoms! I've been watching them every day."

They lay on the ground. Norry even sprang up for the last one.

"They're bad luck, child! Blossoms or fruit out of season is trouble without reason. I hadn't spied them before, or I wouldn't have let them come to light. That's as true as true can be. There, don't cry, child. I hope I haven't been too late."

"Yes. I've heard the adage," said her mother. "Norry is superstitious."

"Still, I'm glad you inquired," Mrs. Forbes said to her husband. "And that there's nothing derogatory to the young man. He's likely now to settle down, and he will have a fine chance with Mr. Carrick, who certainly is taking fortune at the flood tide. And one can guess what will happen."

"A woman generally guesses that. I hoped it would be Langdale. He is a fine fellow, and will make his mark," was the reply.

"Daffodil isn't in love with military life. Most girls are;" laughing. "Why, I never had two thoughts about the matter. I must give them a little tea again."

"Ask Jack Remsen and Peggy Ray, and make them happy, but leave out the lieutenant. Something surely happened between them."

Andsdell came to the Carricks according to agreement. How cosy the place looked, with the great blaze of the logs in the fireplace, that shed a radiance around. He was formally presented to Mrs. Carrick and the Bradins. Daffodil and her mother sat in the far corner, with two candles burning on the light stand. The girl was knitting some fine thread stockings, with a new pattern of clocks, that Jane had sent her from Philadelphia. Felix had a cold, and had gone to bed immediately after supper, and they were all relieved at that.

Jeffrey Andsdell had stated his case. He was tired of desultory wandering, and seven-and-twenty was high time to take up some life work. He was the fourth son of a titled family, with no especial longing for the army or the church, therefore he, like other young men without prospects, had emigrated. The heir to the title and estates, the elder brother, was married and had two sons, the next one was married also, but so far had only girls, and the entail was in the male line. The brother next older than Jeffrey had been a sort of imbecile, and died. But there was no chance of his succeeding, so he must make his own way. He had spent two years at Richmond and Williamsburg, then at Philadelphia. At Williamsburg he had taken quite a fancy to the stage, and achieved some success, but the company had disbanded. It was a rather precarious profession at best, though he had tried a little of it in London.

The straightforward story tallied with Captain Forbes' information. True, there was one episode he had not dwelt upon, it would never come up in this new life. How he had been crazy enough to take such a step he could not now imagine. But it was over, and done with, and henceforward life should be an honorable success.

Daffodil listened between counting her stitches. She stole shy glances now and then, he sat so the firelight threw up his face in strong relief. The brown hair had a little tumbled look, the remnant of some boyish curls. The features were good, rather of the aquiline order, the eyes well opened, of a sort of nondescript hazel, the brown beard worn in the pointed style, with a very narrow moustache, for the upper lip was short and the smiling aspect not quite hidden.

When he rose to go the ladies rose also. He shook hands, and held Daffodil's a moment with a pressure that brought a faint color to her soft cheek.

"He is very much of a gentleman," commented Mrs. Bradin. "And, taking up a steady occupation is greatly to his credit. Though it seems as if a soldier's life would have been more to his taste."

"I am glad he did not fight against us," said Barbe.

"Some have, and have repented," added her husband, with a touch of humor in his tone. "And we are large-minded enough to forgive them."

Daffodil did not see him until she went over to the Fort. Langdale dropped in to see her, but there was no cordial invitation to remain. He knew later on that Andsdell was there, and in his heart he felt it was not Archie who would be his strongest rival. If there was something that could be unearthed against the Englishman!

The Remsens, mother and son, were very agreeable people, quite singers, but there was no piano for accompaniment, though there were flutes and violins at the Fort. Andsdell, after some pressing, sang also, and his voice showed training. Then he repeated a scene from "The Tempest" that enchanted his hearers. Daffodil was curiously proud of him.

"You did not haunt the woods much," he began on the way home. "I looked for you."

"Did you?" Her heart beat with delicious pleasure. "But I did not promise to come."

"No. But I looked all the same, day after day. What were you so busy about?"

"Oh, I don't know. I thought—that perhaps it wasn't quite—right;" hesitatingly.

"It will be right now." He pressed the arm closer that had been slipped in his. Then they were silent, but both understood. There was something so sweet and true about her, so delicate, yet wise, that needed no blurting out of any fact, for both to take it into their lives.

"And who was there to-night?" asked her mother, with a little fear. For Mrs. Forbes would hardly know how matters stood between her and Lieutenant Langdale.

"The Remsens only. And they sing beautifully together. Oh, it was really charming. Mrs. Remsen asked me to visit her. It's odd, mother, but do you know my friends have mostly fallen out! So many of the girls have married, and I seem older than the others. Does a year or two change one so? I sometimes wonder if I was the eager little girl who went to Philadelphia, and to whom everything was a delight."

"You are no longer a little girl."

"And at the nutting the other day, I went to please Felix, you know. But the boys seemed so rough. And though I climbed a tree when they all insisted, I—I was ashamed;" and her face was scarlet.

Yes, the Little Girl was gone forever.

Her mother kissed her, and she felt now that her child would need no one to tell her what love was like. For it took root in one's heart, and sprang up to its hallowed blooming.

It was too soon for confidences. Dilly did not know that she had any that could be put into words. Only the world looked beautiful and bright, as if it was spring, instead of winter.

"You've changed again," Felix said observantly. "You're very sweet, Dilly. Maybe as girls grow older they grow sweeter. I shan't mind your being an old maid if you stay like this. Dilly, didn't you ever have a beau? It seems to me no one has come——"

"Oh, you silly child!" She laughed and blushed.

There were sleighing parties and dances. It is odd that in some communities a girl is so soon dropped out. The dancing parties, rather rough frolics they were, took in the girls from twelve to sixteen, and each one strove boldly for a beau. She was not going to be left behind in the running. But Daffodil Carrick was already left behind, they thought, though she was asked to the big houses, and the dinners, and teas at the Fort.

Andsdell dropped in now and then ostensibly to consult Mr. Carrick. Then he was invited to tea on Sunday night, and to dinner at the holidays, when he summoned courage to ask Bernard Carrick for his daughter.

For he had begun a new life truly. The past was buried, and never would be exhumed. And why should a man's whole life be blighted by a moment of folly!

They grew brave enough to look at one another in the glowing firelight, even if the family were about. One evening she stepped out in the moonlight with him. There was a soft snow on the ground, and some of the branches were yet jewelled with it. Half the lovers in the town would have caught a handful of it and rubbed crimson roses on her cheeks. He said, "Daffodil," and drew her closely in his arms, kissed the lips that throbbed with bashful joy and tremulous sweetness.

"Dear, I love you. And you—you are mine."

There was a long delicious breath. The story of love is easily told when both understand the divine language.

She came in glowing, with eyes like stars, and went straight to her mother, who was sitting alone. Both of the men had gone to some borough business. She kissed her joyous secret into the waiting heart.

"You love him. You know now what love is? That is the way I loved your father."

"It is wonderful, isn't it? You grow into it, hardly knowing, and then it is told without words, though the words come afterward. Oh, did you think——"

"Foolish child, we all saw. He carried the story in his eyes. Your father knew. He has been very honest and upright. Oh, my dear, I am so glad for you. Marriage is the crown of womanhood."

Her mother drew her down in her lap. Daffodil's arms were around her neck, and they were heart to heart, a happy mother and a happy child.

"You will not mind if I go to bed? I—I want to be alone."

"No, dear. Happy dreams, whether you wake or sleep."

She lay in a delicious tremor. There was a radiant light all about her, though the room was dark. This was what it was to be loved and to love, and she could not tell which was best.

Then at home he was her acknowledged lover. He came on Wednesday night and Sunday to tea. But Norry soon found it out, and was glad for her. Grandad teased her a little.

"And you needn't think I'm going to leave you any fortune," he said, almost grumblingly. "The blamed whiskey tax is eating it up every year, and the little left will go to Felix. You have all that land over there that you don't need more than a dog needs two tails. Well, I think there are times when a dog would be glad to wag both, if he had 'em. That will be enough for you and your children. But I'll dance at the wedding."

Barbe Carrick looked over the chest of treasures that she had been adding to year after year. There was her wedding gown, and it had been her mother's before her. The lace was exquisite, and no one could do such needlework nowadays. What if it had grown creamy by age, that only enhanced it.

Here were the other things she had accumulated, sometimes with a pang lest they should not be needed. Laid away in rose leaves and lavender blooms. Oh, how daintily sweet they were, but not sweeter than the girl who was to have them. And here were some jewels that had been great-grandmother Duvernay's. She would have no mean outfit to hand down again to posterity.

Barbe was doubly glad that she would live here. She could not bear the thought of her going away, and a soldier's wife was never quite sure where he might be called, or into what danger. There would be a nice home not very far away, there would be sweet, dainty grandchildren. It was worth waiting for.

Jeffrey Andsdell was minded not to wait very long. Love was growing by what it fed upon, but he wanted the feast daily. They could stay at home until their new house was built.

"We ought to go over across the river," she said, "and be pioneers in the wilderness. And, oh, there is one thing that perhaps you won't like. Whoever married me was to take the name of Duvernay, go back to the French line."

"Why, yes, I like that immensely." That would sever the last link. He would be free of all the old life.

"It isn't as pretty as yours."

"Oh, do you think so? Now, I am of the other opinion;" laughing into her lovely eyes.

She grew sweeter day by day, even her mother could see that. Yes, love was the atmosphere in which a woman throve.

Barbe settled the wedding time. "When the Daffodils are in bloom," she said, and the lover agreed.

Archie Langdale wrote her a brotherly letter, but said, "If you could put it off until my vacation. I'm coming back to take another year, there have been so many new discoveries, and I want to get to the very top. Dilly—that was the child's name, I used to have a little dream about you. You know I was a dull sort of fellow, always stuffing my head with books, and you were sweet and never flouted me. I loved you very much. I thought you would marry Ned, and then you would be my sister, you could understand things that other girls didn't. I am quite sure he loved you, too. But your happiness is the first thing to be considered, and I hope you will be very happy."

The engagement was suspected before it was really admitted. There were various comments, of course. Daffodil Carrick had been waiting for something fine, and she could afford to marry a poor man with her possible fortune, and her father's prosperity. And some day a girl would be in luck to get young Sandy Carrick.

Lieutenant Langdale took it pretty hard. He had somehow hoped against hope, for he believed the Carricks would refuse a man who had come a stranger in the place. If he could call him out and shoot him down in a duel! He shut himself up in his room, and drank madly for two days before he came to his senses.

March came in like the lion and then dropped down with radiant suns that set all nature aglow. There were freshets, but they did little damage. Trees budded and birds came and built in the branches. Bees flew out in the sunshine, squirrels chattered, and the whole world was gay and glad.

One day the lovers went up the winding path to the old hill-top, where Jeffrey insisted he had first lost his heart to her. They sat on the same tree trunk, and he said verses to her, but instead of Clorinda it was Daffodil. And they talked sweet nonsense, such as never goes out of date between lovers. And when they came down they looked at the daffodil bed. The buds had swollen, some were showing yellow.

"Why, it can be next week!" cried the lover joyously.

"Yes," said the mother, with limpid eyes, remembering when the child was born.

There was not much to make ready. The cake had been laid away to season, so that it would cut nicely. There was a pretty new church now, and the marriage would be solemnized there, with a wedding feast at home, and then a round of parties for several evenings at different houses. The Trents had just finished their house, which was considered quite a mansion, and the carpets had come from France. They would give the first entertainment.

She had written to her guardian, who sent her a kindly letter, wishing her all happiness. The winter had been a rather hard one for him, for an old enemy that had been held in abeyance for several years, rheumatism, had returned, and though it was routed now, it had left him rather enfeebled, otherwise he would have taken the journey to see his ward, the little girl grown up, whose visit he had enjoyed so much, and whom he hoped to welcome in his home some time again.

And with it came a beautiful watch and chain. Presents were not much in vogue in those days, and their rarity made them all the more precious.

They dressed the house with daffodils, but the bride-to-be was all in white, the veil the great-grandmother had worn in Paris, fastened with a diamond circlet just as she had had it.

"Oh!" Daffodil exclaimed, "if great-grandfather could see me!"

Jeffrey Andsdell took her in his arms and kissed her. This was, indeed, a true marriage, and could there ever be a sweeter bride?

She was smiling and happy, for every one was pleased, so why should she not be! She even forgot the young man pacing about the Fort wishing—ah, what could he wish except that he was in Andsdell's place? For surely he was not mean enough to grudge her any happiness.

She walked up the church aisle on her lover's arm and next came her parents. Once Andsdell's lips compressed themselves, and a strange pallor and shudder came over him.

Her father gave her away. The clergyman pronounced them man and wife. Then friends thronged around. They were privileged to kiss the bride in those days.

"My wife," was what Jeffrey Andsdell said in a breathless, quivering tone.

They could not rush out in modern fashion. She cast her smiles on every side, she was so happy and light-hearted.

They reached the porch just as a coach drove up at furious speed. A woman sprang out, a tall, imperious-looking person, dressed in grand style. Her cheeks were painted, her black eyes snapped defiance. One and another fell back and stared as she cried in an imperious tone, looking fiercely at the bride, "Am I too late? Have you married him? But you cannot be his wife. I am his lawful, legal wife, and the mother of his son, who is the future heir of Hurst Abbey. I have come from England to claim him. His father, the Earl of Wrexham, sends for him, to have him restored to his ancestral home."

She had uttered this almost in a breath. Daffodil, with the utmost incredulity, turned to her husband and smiled, but the lines almost froze in her face. For his was deadly white and his eyes were fixed on the woman with absolute terror.

"It is God's own truth," she continued. "I have your father's letter, and you will hardly disown his signature. Your son is at Hurst Abbey——"

"Woman!" he thundered, "it is a base trumped-up lie! There are four lives between me and the succession, and there may be more."

"There were, but last autumn they were all swept suddenly out of existence. The Earl was crazed with grief. I went to him and took his grandson, a beautiful child, that would appeal to any heart. And at his desire I have come to America for you."

Jeffrey Andsdell placed his wife in her father's arms. "Take her home," he said hoarsely, "I will follow and disprove this wild, baseless tale."

Then he pressed her to his heart. "Whatever happens, you are the only woman I have ever loved, remember that;" and taking the woman's arm, entered her coach with her.

The small group dispersed without a word. What could be said! There was consternation on all faces. Bernard Carrick took his daughter home. Once her mother kissed the pallid cheek, and essayed some word of comfort.

"Oh, don't!" she cried piteously. "Let me be still. I must wait and bear it until——"

She did not cry or faint, but seemed turning to stone. And when they reached the house she went straight through the room where the feast was spread, to her own, and threw herself on the bed.

"Oh, acushla darlin'," cried Norah, "sure we had the warning when the pear tree bloomed. I said it was trouble without reason, and though I broke them all off it couldn't save you."

"Oh, my darlin', God help us all."

"Whatever happens!" The words rang through Daffodil's brain like a knell. There was something to happen. She had been so happy, so serenely, so trustingly happy. For her youthful inexperience had not taught her doubt. The cup of love had been held to her lips and she had drank the divine draught fearlessly, with no thought of bitter dregs at the bottom.

Grandmere came and unpinned the veil; it was too fine and precious an article to be tumbled about.

"Let the rest be," she said. "He is coming and I want to be as I was then."

Then they left her lying there on the bed, the gold of her young life turning slowly to dross. Some curious prescience told her how it would be.

She heard the low voices in the other room. There was crying too. That was her mother. Felix asked questions and was hushed. Was it hours or half a lifetime! All in her brain was chaos, the chaos of belief striving with disbelief that was somehow illumined but not with hope.

He came at last. She heard his step striding through the room and no one seemed to speak to him. He came straight to her, knelt at the bed's side, and took her cold hands in his that were at fever heat.

"My poor darling!" he said brokenly. "I should not have learned to love you so well, I should not have asked for your love. But in this new country and beginning a new life it seemed as if I might bury the old past. And you were the centre, the star of the new. Perhaps if I had told you the story——"

"Tell it now," she made answer, but it did not sound like her voice. She made no effort to release her hands though his seemed to scorch them.

"You can hardly understand that old life in London. There is nothing like it here. I was with a lot of gay companions, and all we thought of was amusement. I had a gift for acting and was persuaded to take part in a play. It was a success. I was flattered and fêted. Women made much of me. I was only a boy after all. And the leading lady, some seven years my senior, fascinated me by her attention and her flatteries. It did turn my head. I was her devoted admirer, yet it was not the sort of love that a man knows later on. How it came about, why she should have done such a thing I cannot divine even now, for at that time I was only a poor, younger son, loaded with debts, though most of my compeers were in the same case. But she married me with really nothing to gain. She kept to the stage. I was tired of it and gave it up, which led to our first dissension. She fancied she saw in me some of the qualities that might make a name. And then—she was angry about the child. We bickered continually. She was very fond of admiration and men went down to her. After a little I ceased to be jealous. I suppose it was because I ceased to care and could only think of the wretched blunder I had made and how I could undo it. We had kept the marriage a secret except from her aunt and a few friends. She would have it so. The child was put out to nurse and the company was going to try their fortunes elsewhere. I would not go with her. In a certain way I had been useful to her and we had a little scene. I went to my father and asked him for money enough to take me to America, where I could cut loose from old associates and begin a new life. He did more. He paid my debts, but told me that henceforward I must look out for myself as this was the last he should do for me."

"And now he asks you to return?" There was a certainty in her voice and she was as unemotional as if they were talking of some one else.

"It is true that now I am his only living son. Late last autumn Lord Veron, his wife and two sons, with my next brother, Archibald, were out for an afternoon's pleasure in a sailboat when there came up an awful blow and a sudden dash of rain. They were about in the middle of the lake. The wind twisted them around, the mast snapped, they found afterward that it was not seaworthy. There was no help at hand. They battled for awhile, then the boat turned over. Lady Veron never rose, the others swam for some time, but Archibald was the only one who came in to shore and he was so spent that he died two days later. I wonder the awful blow did not kill poor father. He was ill for a long while. My wife went to him then and took the child and had sufficient proof to establish the fact of the marriage, and her aunt had always been a foster mother to the boy. There must be some curious fascination about her, though I do not wonder father felt drawn to his only remaining son. Archibald's two children are girls and so are not in the entail. Hurst Abbey would go to some distant cousins. And she offered to come to America and find me. She has succeeded," he ended bitterly.

There was a long pause. He raised his head, but her face was turned away. Did she really care for him? She was taking it all so calmly.

"You will go," she said presently.

"Oh, how can I leave you? For now I know what real love is like. And this is a new country. I have begun a new life, Daffodil——"

"But I cannot be your wife, you see that. Would you give up your father's love, the position awaiting you for a tie that could never be sanctified? You must return."

"There is my son, you know. I shall not matter so much to them. It shall be as you say, my darling. And we need not stay here. It is a big and prospering country and I know now that I can make my way——"

It was not the tone of ardent desire. How she could tell she did not know, but the words dropped on her heart like a knell. Apart from the sacrifice he seemed ready to make for her there was the cruel fact that would mar her whole life, and an intangible knowledge that he would regret it.

"You must go." Her voice was firm.

Did she love so deeply? He expected passionate upbraiding and then despairing love, clinging tenderness. One moment he was wild to have the frank, innocent sweetness of their courtship; he was minded to take her in his arms and press bewildering kisses on the sweet mouth, the fair brow, the delicately tinted cheek, as if he could not give her up. Then Hurst Abbey rose before him, his father bowed with the weight of sorrow ready to welcome him, the fine position he could fill, and after all would the wife be such a drawback? There were many marriages without overwhelming love. If his father accepted her—and from his letter he seemed to unreservedly.

He rose from his kneeling posture and leaned over her. She looked in her quaint wedding dress and marble paleness as if it was death rather than life.

"You can never forgive me." His voice was broken with emotion, though he did not realize all the havoc he had made. "But I shall dream of you and go on loving——"

"No! no!" raising her hand. "We must both forget. You have other duties and I must rouse myself and overlive the vision of a life that would have been complete, perhaps too exquisite for daily wear. It may all be a dream, a youthful fancy. Others have had it vanish after marriage. Now, go."

He bent over to kiss her. She put up her hand.

Was it really more anger than love?

"I wish you all success for your poor father's sake." She was going to add—"And try to love your wife," but her whole soul protested.

He went slowly out of the room. She did not turn or make the slightest motion. She heard the low sound of voices in the other room, his among them, and then all was silence. He had gone away out of her life.

Her mother entered quietly, came near, and took her in her arms.

"Oh, my darling, how could the good All Father, who cares for his children, let such a cruel thing happen? If that woman had come a month ago! And he fancied being here, marrying, never to go back, made him in a sense free. But he should not have hidden the fact. I can never forgive him. Yet one feels sorry as well that he should have misspent so much of his life."

"Help me take off my gown, mother. No one must ever wear it again. And we will try not to talk it over, but put it out of our minds. I am very tired. You won't mind if I lie here and see no one except you who are so dear to me."

It was too soon for any comfort, that the mother felt as she moved about with lightest tread. Then she kissed her and left her to her sorrow.

Mr. Carrick had been very much incensed and blamed the suitor severely. Andsdell had taken it with such real concern and regret and apparent heart-break that the father felt some lenity might be allowed in thought, at least.

Grandad was very bitter and thought condign punishment should overtake him.

"And instead," said warm-hearted Norah indignantly, "he turns into a great lord and has everything to his hand. I could wish his wife was ten times worse and I hope she'll lead him such a life that he'll never see a happy day nor hour, the mean, despicable wretch."

In the night tears came to Daffodil's relief, yet she felt the exposure had come none too soon. With her sorrow there was a sense of deception to counteract it. He had not been honest in spite of apparent frankness, and it hurt her to think he had accepted her verdict so readily. Hard as it would have been to combat his protestations in her moment of longing and despair, any woman would rather have remembered them afterward.

Daffodil kept her bed for several days. She felt weak and distraught. Yet she had her own consciousness of rectitude. She had not been so easily won, and she had been firm and upright at the last. There was no weak kiss of longing to remember. The one he had given her in the church could be recalled without shame. For a few moments she had been in a trance of happiness as his wife. And putting him away she must also bury out of sight all that had gone before.

She took her olden place in the household, she went to church after a week or two and began to see friends again, who all seemed to stand in a little awe of her. The weather was lovely. She was out in the garden with her mother. She rode about with her father. But she felt as if years had passed over her and she was no longer the lightsome girl.

It made her smile too, to think how everything else was changing. The old log houses were disappearing. Alleyways were transformed into streets and quite noteworthy residences were going up. General O'Hara and Mayor Craig enlarged their glass house and improved the quality of glass. She remembered when her father had tacked some fine cloth over the window-casing and oiled it to give it a sort of transparency so that they could have a little light until it was cold enough to shut the wooden shutters all the time, for glass was so dear it could not be put in all the windows. Not that it was cheap now, the processes were cumbersome and slow, but most of the material was at hand.

Mrs. Forbes was a warm and trusty friend through this time of sorrow. She would not let Daffodil blame herself.

"We all liked Mr. Andsdell very much, I am sure. I can count up half a dozen girls who were eager enough to meet him and who were sending him invitations. He really was superior to most of our young men in the way of education and manners. And, my dear, I rather picked him out for you, and when I saw he was attracted I made the captain write to a friend of his at Williamsburg and learn if there was anything serious against him, and everything came back in his favor. Of course none of us suspected a marriage. He talked frankly about his family when there was need, but not in any boastful way. And this is not as disgraceful as some young men who have really had to leave their country for their country's good. But, my dear, if it had not been for this horrid marriage you would have gone off in style and been my lady."

"But maybe none of it would have happened then;" with a rather wan smile.

"True enough! But you're not going to settle down in sober ways and wear hodden gray. And it's not as if you had been jilted by some gay gallant who had married another girl before your eyes as Christy Speers' lover did. And she found a much better man without any long waiting, for Everlom has never succeeded in anything and now he has taken to drink. Don't you suppose Christy is glad she missed her chance with him!"

"It won't be that way, though. I think now he will make a fine man and we shall hear nothing disgraceful about him, if we ever hear at all, which I pray may never come to pass. For I want to put it out of my mind like a story I have read with a bad ending."

"You are a brave girl, Daffodil."

"I don't know why I should be really unhappy. I have so many to love me. And it doesn't matter if I should never marry."

Mrs. Forbes laughed at that, but made no reply. Here was the young lieutenant, who was taking heart of grace again, though he did not push himself forward.

On the whole it was not an unhappy summer for Daffodil. She found a great interest in helping Felix though he was not a booky boy. Always his mind seemed running on some kind of machinery, something that would save time and labor.

"Now, if you were to do so," he would say to his father, "you see it would bring about this result and save a good deal of time. Why doesn't some one see——"

"You get through with your books and try it yourself. There's plenty of space in the world for real improvements."

Daffodil went up to the old trysting place one day. How still and lonesome it seemed. Had the squirrels forgotten her? They no longer ran up her arm and peered into her eyes. He was at Hurst Abbey and that arrogant, imperious woman was queening it as my lady. Was all this satisfying him?

It was the right thing to do even if his motives were not of the highest. To comfort his father in the deep sorrow, and there was his little son.

"No," she said to herself, "I should not want to come here often. The old remembrances had better die out."

She had written to her guardian explaining the broken marriage, and he wondered a little at the high courage with which she had accepted all the events. He had sent her a most kindly answer. And now came another letter from him.

There had been inquiries about leasing some property at Allegheny. Also there were several improvements to be made in view of establishing a future city. His health would not admit of the journey and the necessary going about, so he had decided to send his partner, Mr. Bartram, whom she must remember, and whom he could trust to study the interests of his ward. And what he wanted to ask now was another visit from her, though he was well aware she was no longer the little girl he had known and whose brightness he had enjoyed so much. He was not exactly an invalid, but now he had to be careful in the winter and stay in the house a good deal. Sometimes the days were long and lonesome and he wondered if out of the goodness of her heart she could spare him a few months and if her parents would spare her. Philadelphia had improved greatly and was now the Capitol of the country, though it was still staid and had not lost all of its old nice formality. Couldn't she take pity on him and come and read to him, talk over books and happenings, drive out now and then and be like a granddaughter as she was to his friend Duvernay?

"Oh, mother, read it," and she laid the letter in her mother's lap. Did she want to go? She had been so undecided before.

Bernard Carrick had received a letter also. Mr. Bartram was to start in a short time, as it seemed necessary that some one should look after Daffodil's estate and he wished to make her father co-trustee if at any time he should be disabled, or pass out of life. He could depend upon the uprightness and good judgment of Mr. Bartram in every respect. And he put in a very earnest plea for the loan of his daughter awhile in the winter.

"Oh, I should let her go by all means," declared Mrs. Forbes. "You see that unlucky marriage service has put her rather out of gear with gayeties and when she comes back she will be something fresh and they will all be eager to have her and hear about the President and Lady Washington. And it will cheer her up immensely. She must not grow old too fast."

Daffodil went to tea at Mrs. Ramsen's and there was to be a card party with some of the young men from the Fort. Mrs. Forbes and the captain were at tea and the Major's wife. They talked over the great rush of everything, the treasures that were turning up from the earth, the boats going to and fro. Booms had not come in as a word applicable to this ferment, but certainly Pittsburg had a boom and her people would have been struck dumb if the vision of fifty or a hundred years had been unrolled. Lieutenant Langdale came in to the card playing. They really were very merry, and he thought Daffodil was not so much changed after all, nor heartbroken. He was very glad. And then he asked and was granted permission to see her home. He wanted to say something sympathetic and friendly without seeming officious, yet he did not know how to begin. They talked of his mother, of Archie and how well he was doing.

"And at times I wish I had not enlisted," he remarked in a rather dissatisfied tone. "Not that the feeling of heroism has died out—it is a grand thing to know you stand ready at any call for your country's defence, but now we are dropping into humdrum ways except for the Indian skirmishes. And it gets monotonous. Then there's no chance of making money. I didn't think much of that, it seemed to me rather ignoble, but now when I see some of those stupid fellows turning their money over and over,—and there's that Joe Sanders; do you remember the wedding feast and his going off to Cincinnati with his new wife, who was a very ordinary girl?" and Ned gave an almost bitter laugh. "Now he owns his boat and is captain of it and trades all the way to New Orleans."

"Oh, yes." She gave a soft little laugh as the vision rose before her.

"I remember how sweet you looked that night. And I had to be dancing attendance on her sister. How many changes there have been."

"Yes; I suppose that is life. The older people say so. Otherwise existence would be monotonous as you said. But you did admire military life."

"Well, I like it still, only there seem so few chances of advancement."

"But you wouldn't want real war?"

"I'd like an opportunity to do something worth while, or else go back to business."

If she had expressed a little enthusiasm about that he would have taken it as an interest in his future, but she said—

"You have a very warm friend in Captain Forbes."

"Oh, yes;" rather languidly.

Then they talked of the improvements her father had made in the house. There had been two rooms added before the wedding. And the trees had grown so, the garden was bright with flowering shrubs.

"I wonder if I might drop in and see you occasionally," he said rather awkwardly, as they paused at the gate. "We used to be such friends."

"Why, yes;" with girlish frankness. "Father takes a warm interest in you two boys."

Her mother sat knitting. Barbe Carrick hated to be idle. Her father was dozing in his chair.

"Did you have a nice time, little one?"

"Oh, yes. But I am not an enthusiastic card player. I like the bright bits of talk and that leads to carelessness;" laughing. "Mrs. Remsen is charming."

Then she kissed them both and went her way.

"She is getting over her sorrow," admitted her father. "Still I think a change will be good for her, only we shall miss her very much."

"She has been a brave girl. But it was the thought of his insincerity, his holding back the fact that would have rendered him only the merest acquaintance. She has the old French love of honor and truth."

"And the Scotch are not far behind."

Lieutenant Langdale tried his luck one evening. Mr. Carrick welcomed him cordially, and Felix was very insistent that he should share the conversation. He wanted to know about the Fort and old Fort Duquesne, and why the French were driven out. Didn't they have as good right as any other nation to settle in America? And hadn't France been a splendid friend to us? And why should the French and English be continually at war?

"It would take a whole history to answer you and that hasn't been written yet," subjoined his father.

Ned had stolen glances at the fair girl, who was sitting under grandmother Bradin's wing, knitting a purse that was beaded, and she had to look down frequently to count the beads. Yes, she had grown prettier. There was a fine sweetness in her face that gave poise to her character. Had she really loved that detestable Englishman?

They made ready for Mr. Bartram. Not but what there were tolerable inns now, but taking him in as a friend seemed so much more hospitable. Daffodil wondered a little. He had not made much of an impression on her as a girl. Sometimes he had fallen into good-natured teasing ways, at others barely noticed her. Of course she was such a child. And when the talk that had alarmed her so much and inflamed her childish temper recurred to her she laughed with a sense of wholesome amusement. She knew now a man must have some preference. The old French people betrothed their children without a demur on their part, but here each one had a right to his or her own most sacred feelings.

Mr. Bartram was nearing thirty at this period. Daffodil felt that she really had forgotten how he looked. He had grown stouter and now had a firm, compact figure, a fine dignified face that was gentle and kindly as well, and the sort of manliness that would lead one to depend upon him whether in an emergency or not.

Her father brought him home and they all gave him a cordial welcome for M. de Ronville's sake first, and then for his own. He had the refined and easy adaptiveness that marked the true gentleman.

They talked of the journey. So many improvements had been made and towns had sprung up along the route that afforded comfortable accommodations. Harrisburg had grown to be a thriving town and was the seat of government. He had spent two very entertaining days within its borders.

"Yes, M. de Ronville was in failing health, but his mind was clear and bright and had gone back to the delights and entertainments of his early youth. He had a fine library which was to go largely to that started in the city for the general public. He kept a great deal of interest in and ambition for the city that had been a real home. Through the summer he took many outside pleasures, but now the winters confined him largely to the house.

"I do what I can in the way of entertainment, but now that I have all the business matters to attend to, I can only devote evenings to him and not always those, but friends drop in frequently. He has been like a father to me and I ought to pay him a son's devotion and regard, which it is not only my duty, but my pleasure as well. But he has a warm remembrance of the little girl he found so entertaining."

"Was I entertaining?" Daffodil glanced at him with a charming laugh. "Everybody, it seems, was devoted to me, and my pleasure was being consulted all the time. Mrs. Jarvis was so good and kindly. And Jane! Why, it appears now as if I must have been a spoiled child, and spoiled children I have heard are disagreeable."

"I do not recall anything of that. And Jane is married to a sober-going Quaker and wears gray with great complacency, but she stumbles over the thees and thous. Our new maid is very nice, however."

"Oh, that is funny. And Jane was so fond of gay attire and bows in my hair and shoulder knots and buckles on slippers. Why, it is all like a happy dream, a fairy story," and her eyes shone as she recalled her visit.

They still kept to the old living room, but now there was an outside kitchen for cooking. And some logs were piled up in the wide fire-place to be handy for the first cold evening.

"M. de Ronville talked about an old chair that came from France," Mr. Bartram said as he rose from the table. "His old friend used to sit in it——"

"It's this," and Daffodil placed her hand on the high back. "Won't you take it? Yes, great-grandfather used it always and after he was gone I used to creep up in it and shut my eyes and talk to him. What curious things you can see with eyes shut! And I often sat here on the arm while he taught me French."

"I suppose it is sacred now?" He looked at it rather wistfully.

"Oh, you may try it," with her gay smile. "Father has quite fallen heir to it. Grandfather Bradin insists it is too big for him."

"I'm always wanting a chair by the light stand so that I can see to read or make fish-nets," said that grandfather.

The room was put in order presently and the ladies brought out their work. Daffodil saw with a smile how comfortably the guest adapted himself to the old chair while her father talked to him about the town and its prospects, and Allegheny across the river that was coming rapidly to the attention of business men. What a picture it made, Aldis Bartram thought, and, the pretty golden-haired girl glancing up now and then with smiling eyes.

Mr. Carrick convoyed his guest around Pittsburg the next day, through the Fort and the historical point of Braddock's defeat, that still rankled in men's minds. A survey of the three rivers that would always make it commercially attractive, and the land over opposite. Then they looked up the parties who were quite impatient for the lease which was to comprise a tract of the water front. And by that time it was too late to go over.

"Well, you certainly have a fair prospect. And the iron mines are enough to make the fortune of a town. But the other is a fine patrimony for a girl."

"There was no boy then," said Bernard Carrick. "And she was the idol of great-grandfather. She does not come in possession of it until she is twenty-five and that is quite a long while yet."

They discussed it during the evening and the next day went over the river with a surveyor, and Bartram was astonished at its possibilities. There were many points to be considered for a ten years' lease, which was the utmost M. de Ronville would consent to.

Meanwhile Aldis Bartram became very much interested in the family life, which was extremely simple without being coarse or common. Yet it had changed somewhat since M. de Ronville's visit.

"And enlarged its borders," explained Daffodil. "There are three more rooms. And now we have all windows of real glass. You see there were board shutters to fasten tight as soon as cold weather came, and thick blankets were hung on the inside. And now we have a chimney in the best room and keep fire in the winter, and another small one in the kitchen."

"It is this room I know best. It seems as if I must have been here and seen your great-grandfather sitting here and you on the arm of his chair. I suppose it was because you talked about it so much."

"Oh, did I?" she interrupted, and her face was scarlet, her down-dropped eyelids quivered.

"Please do not misunderstand me. M. de Ronville was very fond of your home descriptions and brought them out by his questions. And you were such an eager enthusiastic child when you chose, and at others prim and stiff as a Quaker. Those moods amused me. I think I used to tease you."

"You did;" resentfully, then forgiving it.

"Well, I beg your pardon now for all my naughty ways;" smiling a little. "What was I saying? Oh, you know he brought home so many reminiscences. And he loves to talk them over."

"And bore you with them?"

"No; they gave me a feeling of going through a picture gallery and examining interiors. When I see one with a delicate white-haired old man, it suggests Mr. Felix Duvernay. I had a brief journey over to Paris and found one of these that I brought home to my best friend and I can not tell you how delighted he was. And because we have talked it over so much, this room had no surprises for me. I am glad to find it so little changed."

"We are—what the papers call, primitive people. It seemed queer and funny to me when I came back. But the ones I love were here."

She paused suddenly and blushed with what seemed to him uncalled for vividness. She thought how she had been offered to him and he had declined her. It was like a sharp, sudden sting.

"I'm glad you don't——" Then she stopped short again with drooping eyes. The brown lashes were like a fringe of finest silk. How beautiful the lids were!

"Don't what?" It was a curious tone, quite as if he meant to be answered.

"Why—why—not despise us exactly, but think we are ignorant and unformed;" and she winked hard as if tears were not far off.

"My child—pardon me, you brought back the little girl that came to visit us. I do not think anything derogatory. I admire your father and he is a man that would be appreciated anywhere. And your grandparents. Your mother is a well-bred lady. I can find queer and outré people not far from us at home, all towns have them, but I should not class the Carricks nor the Bradins with them."

"Grandad is queer," she admitted. "He is Scotch-Irish. And Norry is Irish altogether, but she's the dearest, kindliest, most generous and helpful body I know. Oh, she made my childhood just one delightful fairy story with her legends and her fun, and she taught me to dance, to sing. I should want to strike any one who laughed at her!"

"Do you remember Mistress Betty Wharton?" His tone was quite serious now. "She was one of the favorites of our town. And she was charmed with you. If you hadn't been worthy of taking about, do you suppose she would have presented you among her friends and paid you so much attention? She considered you a very charming little girl. Oh, don't think any one could despise you or yours. And if you could understand how M. de Ronville longs for you, and how much pleasure another visit from you would give him, I do not think you would be hard to persuade."

He had laid the matter before her mother, who had said as before that the choice must be left with her.

He and Felix had become great friends. The boy's insatiable curiosity was devoted to really knowledgeable subjects, and was never pert or pretentious.

When he decided, since he was so near, to visit Cincinnati, Felix said—

"When I get to be a man like you, I mean to travel about and see what people are doing and bring home new ideas if they are any better than ours."

"That is the way to do. And the best citizen is he who desires to improve his own town, not he who believes it better than any other. Now, do you suppose your father would trust you with me for the journey? I should like to have you for a companion."

"Would you, really?" and the boy's face flushed with delight. "Oh, I am almost sure he would. That's awful good of you."

"We'll see, my boy."

"If you won't find him too troublesome. I meant to take him on the journey some time when urgent business called me thither. You are very kind," said Bernard Carrick.

"You see you're not going to have it all," Felix said to Daffodil. "I just wish you had been a boy, we would have such fun. For another boy isn't quite like some one belonging to you."

The child was in such a fever of delight that he could hardly contain himself. His mother gave him many cautions about obeying Mr. Bartram and not making trouble.

"Oh, you will hear a good account of me;" with a resolute nod.

Meanwhile the business went on and papers were ready to sign when the two enthusiastic travellers returned. Mr. Carrick was to be joint trustee with Mr. Bartram in Daffodil's affairs.

"It is a pity we cannot take in Felix as well," Mr. Bartram said. "He will make a very earnest business man, and I look to see him an inventor of some kind."

Felix had been wonderfully interested in the model of William Ramsey's boat forty years before of a wheel enclosed in a box to be worked by one man sitting in the end, treading on treadles with his feet that set the wheel going and worked two paddles, saving the labor of one or two men. It was to be brought to perfection later on.

Meanwhile Daffodil and her mother discussed the plan for her visit. It would last all winter. Could they spare her? Did she want to stay that long? Yet she felt she would like the change to her life.

There was another happening that disturbed her not a little. This was Lieutenant Langdale's visit. When he came in the evening the whole family were around and each one did a share of the entertaining. And if she took a pleasure walk she always asked some friend to accompany her. Mrs. Carrick was not averse to a serious ending. Daffodil had reached a stage of content, was even happy, but the unfortunate circumstance was rarely touched upon between them. It seemed as if she had quite resolved to have no real lovers. What if an untoward fate should send the man back again. The thought haunted the mother, though there was no possible likelihood of it. And her sympathies went out to the lieutenant.

If she went away, he would realize that there was no hope of rekindling love out of an old friendship. It would pain her very much to deny him.

They spoke of her going one evening, quite to his surprise.

"Oh," he said regretfully, "can you not be content here? I am sure they all need you, we all do. Mrs. Forbes will be lost without you. You are quite a star in the Fort society."

"In spite of my poor card-playing," she laughed.

"But you dance. That's more real pleasure than the cards. And we will try to have a gay winter for you. But after all we cannot compete with Philadelphia. I believe I shall try to get transferred from this dull little hole."

"I do not expect to be gay. The great friend I made before married and went to Paris. And M. de Ronville is an invalid, confined mostly to the house during the winter. I am going to be a sort of companion to him. He begs so to have me come."

Archie would be there. A sudden unreasoning anger flamed up in his heart and then dropped down to the white ashes of despair. Was there any use caring for a woman who would not or could not care for you? There were other girls——

"You have really decided to go?" her mother said afterward.

"Oh, I hate to leave you." Her arms were about her mother's neck. "Yet for some things it seems best. And the old story will be the more easily forgotten. I may make it appear of less importance to myself. It has grown quite dreamlike to me."

"Yes," answered the mother under her breath.

So the fact was accepted. "You will never regret giving a few months to an old man near his journey's end," said Mr. Bartram. "And I am very glad for his sake."

Then preparations were made for the journey.

"You must not want for anything, nor be dependent on your good friend," said her father. "And have all the pleasures you can. Youth is the time to enjoy them."

It gave them a heartache to let her go. Mrs. Craig wished she could be her companion again, but she was too old to take such a journey. And now travelling was a more usual occurrence, and she found two ladies who were going to Harrisburg, and who had travelled a great deal, even been to Paris. Aldis Bartram was much relieved, for he hardly knew how to entertain a being who was one hour a child and the next a serious woman. The last two years he had sought mostly the society of men. There were many grave questions to discuss, for the affairs of the country were by no means settled.

It was a very pleasant journey in the early autumn. She enjoyed everything with so much spirit and delight, but she was never tiresomely effusive. The ladies had come from New Orleans and were full of amazement at the rapid strides the country was making, and the towns that were growing up along the route. Their stay in Pittsburg had been brief and they were much amused at some of the descriptions of the earlier days the little girl could recall, the memories of the French great-grandfather, who had lived almost a hundred years, and grandad, who in his earlier years had been what we should call an athlete and was a master hand at games of all sorts. They were much in vogue yet, since there were no play-houses to draw people together for social enjoyment.

Mr. Bartram used to watch her with growing interest. Yes, she would be invaluable to M. de Ronville, and a great relief to him this winter. How had she so easily overlived the great blow of her wedding day! She was a very child then, and truly knew nothing about love.

"We shall be in Philadelphia sometime before Christmas," explained Mrs. Danvers, who was a widow. "We are thinking of settling ourselves there, or in New York, and we shall be glad to take up the acquaintance again. We have enjoyed your society very much, and truly we are indebted to Mr. Bartram for many favors that a maid is apt to blunder over. Women never get quite used to the rougher ways of the world."

"And I shall be glad to see you again," the girl said with unaffected pleasure. "I have enjoyed the journey with you very much."

How did she know just what to say without awkwardness, Mr. Bartram wondered.

The quiet street and the old house seemed to give her a cordial and familiar greeting. Mrs. Jarvis herself came to the door.

"Oh, my dear, we are so glad to have you back again," she cried with emotion. "But how tall you are! You are no longer a little girl."

"I have the same heart after all that has happened;" and though she smiled there were tears in her eyes.

A slow step came through the hall, and then she was held close to the heart of her guardian, who had longed for her as one longs for a child.

Yes, he was quite an old man. Pale now, with snowy hair and beard, and a complexion full of fine wrinkles, but his eyes were soft and tender, and had the glow of life in them.

"Oh," he exclaimed, "you still have the golden hair, and the peachy cheeks, and smiling mouth. I was almost afraid you had changed and grown grave. And your voice has the same ring. I am so thankful to your parents for sparing you again. And, Aldis, you must not mind me, for the business has fallen so behind that I shall not feel neglected if you go to the office at once. We will devote the evening to talk. Are you very tired with your journey?" That to Daffodil.

"No, it was so pleasant and entertaining, and some of it beautiful. Then I do not tire easily."

M. de Ronville held her hand as if he was afraid she might escape, and his longing eyes touched her very heart. But Mrs. Jarvis stepped up on the stairs, and giving him a tender smile, she followed.

Nothing had been changed. Why, she might have left it only yesterday.

As if Mrs. Jarvis had a similar thought about her she said, "My dear, you are just the same, only grown up."

"And everything here is the same. I am very glad; it is like home."

There was the pretty dark blue-and-white toilette set, where the blue looked as if somehow it had melted a little and run over the white. She smiled, thinking how she used to wonder about it.

"This is Susan, our new maid. Mr. Bartram may have told you that Jane was married. She has a good husband and a nice home. But Susan fills the place very well, and now she will wait upon you with pleasure," announced Mrs. Jarvis.

Susan courtesied and smiled. She was younger than Jane, a fresh, fair-looking girl, who had the appearance of having been scrubbed from top to toe.

"And now, when you are ready, come down to the library and have a cup of tea. Oh, I remember, you didn't care for tea, that's an old ladies' comfort. Well, there are other refreshing things that will stay you until supper. We have our dinner now in the middle of the day. M. de Ronville likes it better. Feel thoroughly at home, child."

Susan unpacked her belongings and put them in drawers and the spacious closet, where Daffodil thought they must feel lonesome.

She went downstairs presently, fresh and bright, having chosen her simplest frock, and tied her curls in a bunch behind, instead of putting them high on her head with a comb. On her pretty neck she wore the chain and pendant M. de Ronville had given her. She looked very sweet and youthful.

He motioned her to the sofa beside him.

"I understand how it is, that children and grandchildren keep one young," he began. "It is the new flow of life that vivifies the old pulses. And I advise all young men to marry;" smiling a little. "After awhile business loses its keen interest, and when you have made enough, why should you go on toiling and moiling? Then comes the time you want to take an interest in younger lives. And now tell me about your mother and father, who is prospering greatly, Aldis has written. And the little brother."

She was in full flow of eager talk when Susan brought in the tray with some tea and dainty biscuits, and golden-hearted cake, and Mrs. Jarvis followed her and drew up the little table.

"You see, I am quite pampered. I like a cup of tea at mid-afternoon, for the reason that it makes a break in a rather lonely time. I go out in the morning, when I can, but I take the garden and the porch in the afternoon, and in the evening friends drop in."

Daffodil had a glass of milk. There were some delightful sandwiches, and she was really hungry, as they had not stopped for much dinner at noon. And as she glanced around she saw more cases had been added, and were filled with books, and two or three paintings and beautiful vases. The room did have a cosy aspect, with some easy chairs that were just coming in for elderly people. Young people were expected to sit up straight.

Afterward they walked in the garden. There were choice late roses in bloom, and flowers she had never seen before. Smooth paths of sand beaten hard, here a way of fine white gravel that looked like a snowy ribbon between the green. How beautiful it was! This was what money and education and taste could do. Pittsburg was beginning to have the money, to prosper and boast, but all things seemed in a muddle, compared to this.

She was merry and sweet, and yet it did not seem to her as if it came from a true heart. Was she sorry she had come. Was not her place back there! Was it not her duty not to outgrow Pittsburg, for there she must live her life out. And when she was an old lady there would be Felix, who would marry and have children growing up, true Duvernays, for he would take the name, not her husband.

When they went in the paper had come, and she read that to him. She had stepped so naturally into the old place. Susan began to arrange the table, Mr. Bartram came in looking really fagged out, but cordially attentive and chatty with the happenings.

It was a sort of high tea, and there was an air about everything different from their simplicity at home, but Mr. Bartram had adapted himself so readily to that. Was it out of kindly consideration?

"Now, I am going to dismiss you, my little dear," exclaimed the old man gently, "for I want to hear what Aldis has to say. And you have been very sweet and patient. Promise that you will not disappear in the night."

"Oh, I promise. I am not a bird that I could fly back in the night, and then I think only evil birds fly at that period."

He kissed her on the forehead. She sat on the porch awhile with Mrs. Jarvis, and then went to bed in the room that was sweet with rose and lavender. Well, so was her pillow at home. But it was so still here. Even the insects seemed to have modulated their shrillness. She buried her face in the softness and cried. Was she regretting the change? Was some gladness, some hope, lost out of her life, that could never come again?

It was bright morning when she woke. Even the very sun seemed to shine in gladness. Susan came, bringing her some water, and wished her good-morning. Yes, it should be a good morning and a good day.

They went to drive when the mists of the night had blown away. Oh, how gay everything looked! Stores had increased, beautiful buildings had gone up, and there was the President's residence. Lady Washington, as many people still called her, came out with her maid and her black servant, with a huge basket. There were others doing the same thing, for it was quite a fashion of the day, though some people were beginning to be waited on by the market men. Ladies in carriages and men walking or riding bowed to M. de Ronville, and wondered who the pretty girl beside him could be. He quite enjoyed the surprised look they gave her.

Then he took a rest on the sofa, and begged her to tell him of the changes they had made in the house, and the boats her father was building, and what new industries had been started. And was grandad as bright and merry as ever? And the ignoble whiskey insurrection; the soldiers at the Fort!

Everything had so much interest for him, and the time passed so rapidly, that Mr. Bartram came home before they hardly thought of dinner. He asked with a smile if she was homesick yet, and although she shook her head with vague amusement, she wondered why she had cried last night? They had some bright talk and then M. de Ronville asked her if she did not want to go shopping with Mrs. Jarvis, who would like very much to have her. Mr. Bartram had brought some papers that must be looked over and signed. But she must not stay out too late for his cup of afternoon tea.

The shopping was really a great diversion. They met several people, who remembered her. And how funny it seemed to pay away so much money for an article, but then there seemed plenty of paper money.

Chestnut Street was gay with riders, both men and women, and some of the latter looked fine in their dark-green habits and gilt buttons. There were many promenading, dressed in the quaint style of the day, and not a few Friends in silvery-gray, with the close-fitting scuttle-shaped bonnets.

"I am so glad you have come," was Susan's greeting. "There are two ladies waiting to see you, Miss Daffodil, and M. de Ronville would make me bring in the tea for them."

"Oh, what are their names?" cried the girl eagerly.

"I was not to tell you;" and a smile lurked behind Susan's lips.

She ran upstairs and took off her hat and mantle, and came into the library wondering.

"Oh;" pausing to think for a moment. "It's Miss Pemberton, and—is it Belinda?"

"Oh, you haven't changed a bit, except to grow tall;" and Belinda almost hugged her. "But Mary is Mrs. Hassel, and has the darlingest little boy you ever saw. Oh, do you remember our party out on the lawn, and our picnic? I'm so glad you have come again. I'm the only girl home now;" and then Belinda blushed deeply.

"And Mr. de Ronville would have us share his tea. I've heard it's a kind of English fashion, which he ought not countenance, since he is French, I tell him," said Mrs. Hassel jestingly. "But it is delightful. I think I'll start it. A cup of tea seems to loosen one's tongue."

"Do women really need the lubrication?" asked M. de Ronville with a smile.

"Yes, they do. Think of three or four different women hardly knowing what to say to each other, and after a few sips of tea they are as chatty as you please. But I must say I was so delighted with his charming news that I would have waited until dark for the chance of seeing you."

"Oh, thank you;" and Daffodil blushed prettily.

"And we know a friend of yours, at least Jack does, a young doctor, who is going to be great some day, and who is from Pittsburg, Dr. Langdale."

"Oh, yes, I knew he was studying here."

"And he has made one or two remarkable discoveries about something or other. Dr. Rush considers him one of the coming men."

"I am very glad to hear that. Oh, we all seemed children together. And his older brother is a lieutenant at Fort Pitt."

"Can't he get a furlough? I'd like to see him," said Belinda gayly.

"He's tired of dull Fort Pitt, and was talking of getting exchanged. That isn't quite right, I believe; it sounds as if he was a prisoner."

"We must go," insisted Mrs. Hassel. "We will hardly have time for another call. M. de Ronville has been so fascinating."

"Oh, did I hold out a fascination?" mischievously.

"It was both," admitted Belinda. "And now we want to see ever so much of you. Mary, give us a regular tea party; she only lives round in Arch Street. And you will want to see the baby."

"Of course I will," said the young girl.

Then they made their adieus. Susan took away the tea-things.

"Was the shopping nice?" enquired her guardian.

"Oh, there are so many lovely things! I didn't mean to buy anything, you know, but we looked at such an elegant pelisse. Only everything costs so much!"

"Oh, economical little girl!"

"And the shopwoman would try on such a splendid white beaver that had just come in with a beautiful long plume and a white satin bow on top. Why, I felt as if I had just arrived from Paris!"

M. de Ronville leaned back and laughed. She looked so pretty and spirited, standing here. He could imagine her in the white beaver and handsome pelisse.

"How about the French?" he asked. "Have you forgotten it all?"

"Oh, no. Grandmere and I talk sometimes."

"We must have a little reading. Why, we could talk as well. I sometimes get rusty."

"It was very nice of the Pembertons to remember me," she said reflectively.

"I had said you were likely to come, and they heard Mr. Bartram had returned. So they came at once."

She could see he was proud of the compliment paid her.

"Now, you are tired," he said. "I'll read the paper for myself."

"No, no." She took it away playfully. "When my voice gets shaky, you may ask me to stop;" and the mirth in her tone was good to hear.

How delightful it was to lean back comfortably and listen to the pleasant voice, with its subtle variations. Ah, if Aldis Bartram could have made sure of her in that other time, before she had learned to love and had her sorrow. And now he seemed to be settled in bachelor ways, and resolved to miss the sweetness of love and life.

"Aldis," he said, at the tea table, "do you know young Dr. Langdale?"

"In a way. He is not in my line, you know. A very promising young fellow. Were you thinking of trying him?"

"Oh, no. But he is from Pittsburg. The Hassels and Miss Pemberton seem to know him quite well. And he is a friend of Daffodil's."

"Oh, and is that lieutenant his brother?"

Daffodil blushed, though why, she could not have told, and she merely nodded.

"Mrs. Hassel seems to think very highly of him."

"He's made some sort of discovery—they had him at Dr. Rush's, and he is in a fair way to success. Score one for Pittsburg."

"But he has been studying here," rejoined Daffodil frankly.

The next day it rained, and rainy days seemed to affect M. de Ronville, but he hardly noted it. They read and talked French, and had a rather laughable time. And in the afternoon an old friend, Colonel Plumsted, came in to play chess, and Daffodil watched, much interested. Aldis was surprised to find his host in such good spirits when he returned.

Mrs. Hassel gave her tea party soon after. Daffodil met several old friends, who remembered the little girl. Belinda found time to impart the secret that she and Jack Willing were engaged, though she meant to have one good winter of fun before she was married. Jack seemed to be a nice, jolly fellow. And there was Anton Wetherell and Arthur Pemberton, and Arthur was asked to take her out to the supper table.

"Why, it's quite like old times to have you here again! Truly, I never thought of your growing up. You were always in my mind as a little golden-haired fairy that flashes about and then—do they return to the 'little folk'?"

"I haven't, you see. But I was not quite a fairy. And one grandfather used to call me Yellowtop." She laughed musically.

"One? How many grandfathers did you have?"

"I had three at one time, one in every generation. But the oldest one went away, and now there are only two."

"And I danced with you, I remember. I hope you haven't forgotten how. We have dancing parties, as well as tea parties. We are considered quite staid and sober-going people, but we young folks put in a good deal of fun. Bel's engaged, I dare say she told you, and I am the only solitary—shall I call myself a blossom? left on the parent stalk."

They both laughed at that. It takes so little to amuse young people.

"You'll have to go to one of Lady Washington's receptions, though in the whisper of confidence be it said they are rather stiff. There's the Norris house, that's the place for fun. The Norris girls find so many bright people, and they're not the jealous kind, but they make everybody shine."

Then Bel took her off to meet Miss Plumsted.

"I'm very glad to see you;" and Miss Plumsted's voice was honestly sweet. "Grandfather goes to play chess with M. de Ronville. He is your guardian, I believe. And now, are you going to live here?"

"Oh, no. I am here only on a visit. My parents and all my folks live at Pittsburg."

"Oh, that seems way out West. The Ohio River is there, and they go out to St. Louis and down to New Orleans. Is it a real city?"

"Not yet, but they are talking about it."

Then some one else came. Two or three of the young men dropped in during the evening, and there was some music on a flute and a violin. Altogether it was a very pleasant time, and Arthur Pemberton took her home and asked if he might not have the pleasure of calling occasionally.

She hardly knew what was proper. It seemed ungracious to say "no," so she answered that he might.

One of the quiet evenings, the two men were playing chess and Daffodil was watching them; Susan came in and said in her most respectful manner:

"A gentleman wishes to see Miss Carrick. Here is his card."

Daffodil took it and read, "Archibald Langdale, M.D."

"Oh," in a glad, girlish tone, "it's my old friend, Archie, that I haven't seen in ever so long. Dr. Langdale;" with a pretty assumption of dignity.

"Yes."

"And, uncle, you must see him. Not that I want you to accept him for a family physician, for really I don't know what he is like. He may be the veriest prig;" and she gave a dainty half laugh. "If he is spoiled it will be the fault of your city, he was very nice at Pittsburg. And you, too, Mr. Bartram."

"I have met the young man. I didn't see that he was much puffed up with his honors."

"Thank you." She made a fascinating courtesy. How pleased she was, he could see that.

"We will soon be through with the game. Yes, I'll come," said M. de Ronville.

She would hardly have known Archie. He stood up straight and he was quite as tall as Ned. He had filled out somewhat, though he was still rather thin, but his face had lost that deprecating expression, and had a clear notion not only of truth and honor, but of his own power as well. It was a tender face also, with the light in it that draws one unconsciously. The eyes seemed to have grown darker, but the hair was light as in boyhood.

"I am so glad to see you again;" and he took both hands in a warm clasp. "I couldn't wait until some accidental meeting, where you might kindly invite me for old friendship's sake."

"That would not have been worth while. I have heard about you, and I wondered if you had outgrown childish remembrances."

"You would bring them all back if I had. How little you have changed, except to grow tall. And now tell me about yours and mine. Once in a great while Ned writes, and mother doesn't seem to have the gift of chatty letters. Hers are mostly about my humble self, her son rather, and how he must avoid certain things and do other certain things, and not grow hard-hearted and irreligious and careless of his health;" smiling with a touch of tenderness. "So, you see, I do not hear much about the real Pittsburg."

"Oh, you would hardly know it now, there are so many changes, and so much business. New streets, instead of the old lanes, and the old log houses are fast disappearing. We are making real glass, you know, and there is talk of a paper mill. And nearly all the girls are married; the older ones, I mean. Families are coming in from the country, others go out to Ohio and Kentucky. Why, it is a whirl all the time."

"I'd like to see it and mother. I've planned to go several times, but some study or lectures that I couldn't miss would crop up. And it takes so much time. Why doesn't some one invent a quicker way of travelling? Now, if we could fly."

"Oh, that would be just splendid!" eagerly.

"I used to watch the birds when I was a boy, and flying seemed so easy for them. Now, why can't some one think up a pair of wings that you could slip on like a jacket and work them with some sort of springs, and go sailing off? I'm learning to put people together, but I never was any hand for machinery."

"Oh, think of it! A winged jacket;" and they both laughed gleefully.

Then M. de Ronville entered and expressed his pleasure at meeting the young man, who was already distinguishing himself, and who was an old friend of Miss Carrick.

"Not that either of you are very old," he commented smilingly.

Mr. Bartram he recalled. And certainly the generally quiet student talked his best. Was Daffodil a sort of inspiration? Was that one of the graces of early friendship?

He apologized presently for his long stay. He so seldom made calls, that he must plead ignorance of the correct length, but he had enjoyed himself very much. And then M. de Ronville invited him to drop in to tea. He would like to discuss some new medical methods with him.

"A very intelligent, well-balanced young man," the host remarked. "If the other one is as sensible, they are sons to be proud of."

"Their mother is proud of them, but their father would rather have had them in business," said Daffodil.

Belinda Pemberton was quite fascinated with Daffodil. "You are such a sweet, quaint, honest little thing," she said, "and you do make such delightfully naïve remarks. And Arthur declares you must have learned to dance in fairyland."

"I think I did," she returned gayly. "And I do love it so."

Then the little circle, and the wider one, had a fine surprise. Betty Wharton, now Madame Clerval, returned quite unexpectedly, as her husband had resigned his position.

"I had quite enough of Paris," she said to a friend. "One wants an immense fortune to truly enjoy it. And somehow things seem shaky. Then, too, one does have a longing for home when one gets past youth."

So she opened her house and set up a carriage. Monsieur Clerval found himself quite in demand by the government, as the country needed a multitude of counsellors.

She came in to see M. de Ronville, who gallantly said she had renewed her youth, and begged for the secret.

"It is simply to keep young, to resolve not to grow old;" with a gay emphasis.

"But time passes, my dear lady."

"And where is that pretty, golden-haired Daffodil?" she enquired.

The girl was summoned. Yes, she had outgrown childhood, but there was a delightful charm in her young womanhood.

"We were such friends—if you can remember so far back."

"And you were so good to me, and made everything so enjoyable. Wasn't I very ignorant?"

"You were very frank, and honest, and adaptable. So we must take up the old intimacy again. M. de Ronville, I shall drop in often and say, 'Lend me your daughter for this or that occasion.' Or is it your niece? And if some one falls in love with her you must not scold me. Young men have eyes, and really, I am too kindly-hearted to throw dust in them."

Daffodil turned scarlet.

"Is it quite right to go about so much?" she said to M. de Ronville afterward, and the tone had a great uncertainty in it, while the curves of her pretty mouth quivered. "For you know——"

He drew her down beside him on the sofa.

"I thought some time we would talk it over—your unfortunate marriage, I suppose, comes up now and then to haunt you. Yet, it was fortunate, too, that the explanation came just as it did. I honestly believe it was an ignorant child's fancy. You were not old enough to understand real love. I think he could hardly have been a thorough villain, but an incident like this has happened more than once. And I truly believe you have overlived it."

She shuddered, and her eyes were limpid with tears. It was good to feel his friendly arm about her.

"It is like a dream to me, most of the time. And I think now, if he had made a passionate, despairing protest, it would have gone much harder with me. But it was right for him to go away when his father sent, and he was the next in succession to Hurst Abbey. And there was his child, his boy. I could never have been his true wife, but it hurt to be given up so readily, yet it was best. It gave me courage. And what if he had tired of me later on? They all helped me to bear it. And there was the deception. For if he had told the truth, there might have been pity, but no love."

"It was a sad thing to happen. My heart ached for you. But you know, Daffodil, you never were a wife in the true sense of the word. You are quite free, you have always been free. And you must feel so. You must not carry about with you any uncertainty. It is something buried fathoms deep, that you need never draw up to the surface, unless in time to come you tell the story to the man you marry."

"I shall never marry," she returned gravely. "I have it all planned. Felix shall have the fortune, for what could a woman do with it in her own hands? And he has the name, he has only to leave off the Carrick. And it shall be my business to make every one as happy as I can. And if it is not wrong to take pleasure for myself—I do love joy and happiness, and I could not grieve forever, when I knew the thing I would grieve for was wrong."

There were tears dropping off the bronze lashes, but she was not really crying. He pressed her closer. There was an exquisite depth to her that did not often come to the surface.

"So you have it all planned for the years to come," he returned after a moment or two. "That is quite far off. Meanwhile you must have a good time with other young people. That will make me the happiest, if you care for me."

"Oh, indeed I do, indeed I do," she cried earnestly. Then, after quite a pause, she continued—

"I almost lost sight of what I wanted to ask. It was whether I ought to explain anything, whether it would be sailing under false colors when no one knew;" and she gave a tangled sort of breath that she would not allow to break into a sob.

"My dear child, there would be no use in explaining what could only be a matter of gossip. I think, nay, I am certain, Aldis and myself are the only ones who know, and if there had been any trouble I should have sent him to your assistance. I dare say, some of your friends and neighbors at home have wellnigh forgotten about it. And now, do not let it disturb you, but be as happy as God meant you should be, when He snatched you from the peril."

"Oh, thank you," she rejoined with a grateful emotion that he felt quiver through her slender body.

She wondered if she was too light-minded, too easily pleased. For every joyous thing seemed to come her way. The girls sought her out, the young men wanted to dance with her, and were willing to bore themselves going out to supper, if they knew she would be there. It was not because she was brighter or wittier than the others, or could think of more entertaining plays, but just that she seemed to radiate an atmosphere of happiness.

She did not give up all her time to pleasure. She drove with her guardian on pleasant days; he had left off riding now, but he sent her out occasionally with Mr. Bartram, lest she should get out of practice, he said. Then she read to him, or they took up French. She made merry over her blunders.

The autumn was long and warm. They sat in the garden in the sunshine, or walked up and down. Now and then he went to the office, when there were some important matters on hand.

Madame Clerval gave a dance after she had her house set in order. It might have been called a ball. It was mostly for the young people; she was just as fond of them as ever, and secretly admitted that she didn't enjoy prosy old people, who could talk of nothing but their pains and aches, and how fast the country was going to ruin.

"Do you think Mr. Bartram would consider it a nuisance to come for me?" she asked of her guardian, with a face like a peony.

"Why, no, child. Madame made quite a point of his coming. He is growing old too fast."

"Why, he isn't old," she said rather indignantly. "And you see—it's hard sometimes not to offend this one or that one, and if he is really coming, will you ask him to bring me home? Wouldn't you prefer it?"

"I think I would;" very gravely, though he wanted to smile.

Wetherell and Arthur Pemberton were pushing each other for her favors, and she tried to distribute them impartially.

The dance was a splendid success, and the dainty supper had a French air. Mr. Bartram came in just before that. Daffodil was engaged, of course. Madame provided him with a charming partner.

There was only a galop afterward. At private affairs it was not considered good taste to stay after midnight. Mr. Bartram made his way to Daffodil, and asked her if she was ready to go, and she nodded gracefully.

She looked so pretty as she came down the stairs, wrapped in something white and fleecy, smiling on this side and that.

"It was very enjoyable," he said, "at least to you young people. I'm not much of a dancer nowadays, so I didn't come early."

"It was just full of pleasure. Madame Clerval always plans admirably."

He smiled to himself. Most girls would have protested about his being late, even if they had not specially cared.

The young people took up the habit of calling in the evening, three or four of them, sometimes half a dozen. Mrs. Jarvis would send in some cake and nice home-made wine, which was quite a fashion then. They made merry, of course.

"Dear uncle," she said one morning, it was raining so they couldn't go out, "didn't we disturb you last evening with our noise and laughter? I don't know why they are so eager to come here, and think they have a good time, for I am not as full of bright sayings as some of the girls. And if it annoys you——"

"My child, no. I lay on the sofa and listened to it, and it almost made me young again. I had no merry youth like that. Oh, am I coming to second childhood?"

His eyes were bright, and she thought she had never seen them so merry, save at first, when he had laughed at some of Felix's pranks. And his complexion was less pallid, his lips were red.

"Then second childhood is lovely. And you have grown so interested in everything. You don't get tired as you used. Are you real happy, or are you doing it just to make me happy?"

She gave him such a sweet, enquiring look, that he was touched at her solicitude.

"It is both, I fancy. You see, last winter I was ill and alone a great deal. I missed Betty Wharton, who was always flying in with some fun, or a bright story that had been told. Aldis had all the business to attend to, and sometimes wrote in the evenings. Time hung very heavy on my hands, and I began to think it was time for me to go hence. And by spring I had quite lost heart, though I began to crawl about a little. And I kept thinking how I should live through another dreary winter, and be half sick. It kept looming up before me. Then I thought I ought to settle something about your business when your father wrote concerning the lease. You came into my mind. I thought how brave you had been through that unfortunate time, and wondered if you would not like a change. I wanted some one to bring in the sunshine of youth, and you had spent so many of your years with elderly people, I thought you must have some art. I could make it pleasant for you, and the reflected light would brighten me. So I begged a little of your sweet young life."

"I am glad if it has made you happy," she said, much moved.

"It has given me new zest, it has made me almost well. True, I have had some twinges of my old enemy, rheumatism, but they have not been severe. I have not been lonely. There was some pleasure within my reach all the time. Oh, old people do want a little of the sun of youth to shine on them. And if you had no dear ones at home, I should keep you always, golden-haired Daffodil."

She took his hand in hers, so full of fresh young life. "And I should stay," she said.

"So, do not think your little merry-makings annoy me at all. I am glad for you to have them, and next day it is like reading a page out of a book, a human book that we are apt to pass by, and say we have no pleasure in it, but it is what we need, and what we want, down in our very heart of hearts, but often we are ashamed to ask for it."

It was true, he was much better. The house was losing its grave aspect. Jane had been used to flinging about wise old saws, and comparisons, and finding things to enjoy; Susan was quiet, falling into routine, and staying there until some new duty fairly pushed her out in another direction. She had no sense of humor or enthusiasm, yet she performed all the requirements of her place with ease and industry.

Mrs. Jarvis was just as kindly solicitous as ever, but intellectually there was a great gulf between her and M. de Ronville. She entertained whatever guests came with an air of precision, never forgetting she was a higher sort of housekeeper. She enjoyed the quiet of her own room, where she sewed a little, and read a good deal, the old-fashioned English novels, such as "Children of the Abbey," "Mysterious Marriage," "The Cottage on the Cliff," and stories of the latter half of the century. She thought it no part of a woman's business to concern herself with politics, she would have preferred living under a real King and nobility, but she accepted the powers that ruled, and stayed in her own little world, though she, as well as M. de Ronville, enjoyed the stir and interest that Daffodil brought about.

After Madame Clerval came, there was more variety and gayety in Daffodil's life, and she helped to rouse M. de Ronville as well. Then came a reception at the Presidential mansion.

"Of course, you will go," Madame said to him, in her persuasive, yet imperious, manner. "We must not be a whit behind those New York people in the attention we pay our President. And one need not stay the whole evening through, you know. You will meet so many old friends. Come, I cannot have you getting old before your time."

"But I am an old man," he protested.

"In our new country we must not get old. It is to be the land of perennial youth," she answered gayly.

Aldis Bartram joined his persuasions as well, and M. de Ronville went almost in spite of himself. He had kept his delicate, high-bred air and French atmosphere, and looked well in the attire of that day, with his flowered waistcoat, his black velvet suit and silk stockings, with a jewelled buckle on his low shoes. His beautiful white hair was just tied in a queue, with a black ribbon. There was something dignified and gracious about him, and friends thronged around to congratulate him. And though he had seen Washington in many different phases of his eventful life, he had not as yet met him as President of the nation he had fought for and cemented together.

There were handsomer girls than Daffodil; indeed, the fame of the beauties of Philadelphia in that day has been the theme of many a song and story. But she was very pretty in her simple white frock that in the fashion of the day showed her exquisite neck and shoulders, though the golden curls, tied high on her head, shaded and dazzled about it in a most bewitching manner. Madame Clerval was wise, she was not trying to outshine any of the belles, yet there was a bevy of young men about her constantly, and most devoted to her and to M. de Ronville, was Dr. Langdale. In fact, he was really the favorite visitor at the house. He ran in now and then with news of some new book, or some old translation, and a talk of the progress of the library and the trend of general education. Why should Boston have it all? Or a new medical discovery, though he was in no sense M. de Ronville's physician.

Was it strange that both these young people, having passed their childhood in Pittsburg, should come to a nearer and dearer understanding? Aldis Bartram watched them with the sense of a new revelation. Yet he could not subscribe to it cordially. The medical enthusiast was hardly the one he would choose for a girl like Daffodil. Arthur Pemberton would do better, yet he was not quite up to her mark. She was a simple seeming girl, yet he was learning that she had a great deal of character and sweetness. Somehow she kept herself curiously enfranchised from lovers. Her friendly frankness gave them a status it was difficult to overcome.

"I never expected to enjoy myself so much again," said M. de Ronville, when they were in the carriage. "It is an excellent thing to go on moving with the world, to keep in touch with the things that make up the sum of life, instead of feeling they belong to the gone-by time, and you have no interest in them."

How much like his olden self he was, Aldis Bartram thought. He wondered if he had been at fault in letting him drop down. There was much perplexing business, and he had hated to bother the elder man with it. Sometimes it seemed tedious to explain. Had he grown selfish in certain ways, preferring to take the burthen, rather than the trouble of sharing it with another? He had much personal ambition, he was in full earnest of a man's aims and life purposes. Yet it was this man who had helped him to the place whereon he stood, and it was not honorable to crowd him out under the plea that his best days were over.

It seemed, indeed, as if days fairly flew by, there was so much crowded in them. When the morning was fine, Daffodil insisted they should drive out. It was delightful to keep bowing and smiling to friends, with this attractive girl beside him. He went to some meetings of the Philosophical Society, and he took a new interest in the Library plans.

"You certainly have worked a transformation," Bartram said to Daffodil, when M. de Ronville consented to go to a concert with them, to hear two remarkable singers, who had come from abroad. "You will have to stay. Didn't I hear you discussing Pittsburg with Mrs. Jarvis?"

"Oh, they are longing for me to return. And in two days March will come in, that will be spring. And I was only to stay through the winter."

"But March is a cruel and deceitful travesty on spring. February has been too short."

"But they want me. And, yes, I want to see them all, and the garden, and the woods, and what new things have happened to Pittsburg. For there is something new coming in all the time."

Her face was so eager and full of happy interest.

"Well—I don't know what we shall do without you"; and the inflection of his voice was disconsolate. "I am afraid we shall fall back to the old routine. I am a busy man, you know, and have to shoulder a great many cares not really my own. Perhaps, too, I haven't the divine art of making a house bright, a woman's province."

"Oh, Mr. Bartram, I will tell you;" in a clear, earnest tone. "Why do you not marry, and bring some one here to do it? There are so many charming girls, sometimes I feel quite unimportant and ignorant beside them."

She uttered it in the same manner she might have asked why he did not bring home some flowers to grace the study table. Her lovely eyes were raised to his in the utmost innocence, and not a tint of color wavered on her cheek. His flushed with sudden surprise.

"Perhaps the charming young girl would consider it a dull house for life, and then elderly people have whims and fancies—well, younger men do. I have myself. And it would be asking a good deal."

"I think uncle hasn't many whims, and he does keep them in the background. You almost have to watch for them. Why, think of grandad!" and she laughed with a soft musical sound. "What he liked yesterday he may not like at all to-day, so Norry does the new thing, and says nothing about the other. And he often disputes with father as to whether there was any real need for the war, and that we would be better off under King George. But uncle is so large-minded, and then he has so many refined and delightful tastes. But you would get lonesome if you were not very well, and no one came to cheer you up, or bring you new thoughts and bright bits of things, that were going on in the world outside."

She paused suddenly, and flushed like a culprit, looking more beguiling than ever, with her downcast eyes.

"I suppose I oughtn't have said it, but it seems true to me, only I'm not blaming you. You have a great many things to attend to, and you must do them in a man's way, devote your whole mind to them, and you can't be frivolous, or other people's business would suffer. If I hadn't any one I would come and stay, but—I love them, and sometimes, in spite of the pleasure, my heart is almost torn in two with the longing. I said I would come back in the spring, and I must go. Then it will not be quite so bad, for Madame Clerval will be in and out, and he is so much better. And you'll let him take an interest in business, when he feels like it—oh, I seem to be giving you advice, and I sincerely beg your pardon. After all, I am not much more than a little girl, and I am talking as if I was old and wise;" and a sudden shame flamed her cheeks with scarlet.

"I think you have been wise, and sweet, and patient, without growing old. You have done a great deal for your guardian this winter—I really was afraid we should not have him with us for very long, and he did seem to wish for you so. Perhaps we were selfish, he and I."

"Oh, I was ready to come, too. It has been a delightful winter, and everybody has been so good to me, I've been just full of pleasure. But when you love those you have left behind, you sometimes feel as if you could fly."

She winked very fast, then made a sudden dab at her eyes, and half laughed, too.

"I think I understand. I have had no one to love dearly since I was a little lad, and all I remember about my mother is that she was pale, and ill, and could not endure a noise. Then I was put in school, and my father went away and died. When I was eighteen I went in M. de Ronville's office, and finished my studies. He has been my best friend, really like a father to me. I ought to make all the return in my power."

"Oh;" and there was a bewildering sweetness in her tone. "I have been so happy most of my life, and had so many to love me."

Then that unfortunate episode had not cost her any deep-seated grief. Had she loved at all, or was it only a childish fancy? He hoped it was, for the sake of her future.

He turned then and went out of the room. M. de Ronville had been up in his dressing-room, with his valet, and now he went to the library, and she followed him. There were some reports to look over, then the carriage came for them. It was sunny, with very little wind, and they had plenty of wraps.

Aldis Bartram went his way to the office. The two clerks were there and busy. He opened his letters, and answered several, the others had need of some legal opinions to be looked up. Then he took up a rather complicated case, but he soon lost the thread of it, for Daffodil's almost upbraiding voice haunted him. He had been outwardly patient many a time when all was irritation within, for he was too manly and too really grateful to show impatience.

Had Daffodil's being there this winter proved the source of the reaction in M. de Ronville's health? Had loneliness intensified the disease and discomfort? Perhaps. And now two or three young men dropped in, and had entertaining talks with him. Or was it because they liked the byplay of the pretty, vivacious girl, who never made herself the first attraction.

"Marry some pretty, charming young girl!" Where would he find one to M. de Ronville's liking?

March opened cold and stormy. Rheumatism made a clutch at M. de Ronville. For several days he did not come downstairs, but insisted that some of the guests must come to him. Dr. Langdale skipped away from a lecture he really desired to hear, and spent an hour comforting the invalid. Madame Clerval came in with a budget of news and friendly gossip, and Daffodil talked of her little girlhood, and old Pittsburg, as they had begun to call it, and sitting on the arm of great-grandfather's chair, and listening to tales of a still older time. He did not wonder that his friend Duvernay had lived to be almost a hundred, with all that affection to make the way pleasant.

Then he improved and came downstairs, took up chess-playing, and little promenades on the porch when the sun shone. And then the talk veered round to Daffodil's departure. He would not hear anything about it at first.

"Yet we have no right to keep her away from her own household, when she has been brave enough to give up all the winter to us," Mr. Bartram said.

"Oh, no, I suppose not. If I was younger, or in assured health, I should go and spend the summer with them. Oh, don't look so startled. I know it wouldn't do, with my uncertain health."

Aldis smiled. "If the summer is fine, and you keep pretty well, we might both take a trip. I would hardly trust you to go alone."

"So we might." The elder was gratified with the consideration.

"Aldis?" presently, in a half-enquiring tone.

"Well?" glancing up.

"Do you think—that Dr. Langdale—that there is anything between him and Daffodil?"

"There has been some talk. But young Pemberton is devoted to her as well."

"With either she would have to come back here to live. I like the doctor. He is such a fine, large-hearted, sympathetic young fellow, with so much real charity for suffering. I seem to be envying other people's sons and daughters;" ending with a longing sound. "Yes, if she were in love with him."

Aldis Bartram experienced a feeling of protest. Yet, why should he object? They were both young, they had been friends from childhood, and he was certainly worthy of her.

That very evening he dropped in. There had been a wonderful surgical operation on a poor fellow, who had been mashed and broken by a bad fall. There had been a dispute at first, whether they could save him intact, but after hours of the most careful work there was a good chance. Dr. Langdale was so proud and enthusiastic, giving every one his due with no narrowness.

Then he said, "Oh, Daffodil, are you really going home?"

"They have sent for me. The winter has gone!" and there was a piquant smile hovering about her face.

"It has been such a short winter I have not done half the things I planned to do. But I am resolved to run away some time in the summer. It is ungrateful not to visit mother. And I do want to see the town, and all the old friends."

"Oh, do come!" There was a joyous light in her eyes, and a sweetness played about her lips.

Yes, he surely thought he would. Then they went on about other matters. Bartram was not much versed in love indications, but something rose within him—as if there should be a higher, stronger, more overwhelming love for her.

She would make them talk cheerfully about her going. She said sagely there was such a thing as wearing out one's welcome, and that now she should feel free to come again.

"Next winter," said her guardian. "I think I can get along through the summer with this thought to sustain me, but I shall be a year older, and perhaps more feeble."

"I strictly forbid either of the consequences;" she laughed with adorable gayety, her eyes alight with fun.

"One would think I was of great consequence," she exclaimed a few days later, "by the lamentations my friends make. Or is it a fashion? It will make it harder for me to go. If we could move Pittsburg over! But there are the splendid rivers, and the hills covered with rhododendrons. And, you see, I shall miss the daffodils."

"If it is such sorrow to part with one, I hardly know how you can endure losing so many," said Aldis Bartram gravely.

She looked at him enquiringly. He seldom paid compliments to any one but Madame Clerval.

There were bloom and beauty enough in the grand old town, where every point was romantic. Every day Daffodil and her guardian were out driving, until it seemed to her she could have found her way about in the dark. And in his office Aldis Bartram sat thinking how lonely the house would be without the sunshine of her golden head, and the sound of her sweet, merry voice, her small, thoughtful ways, and the ease with which she could change from one mode of action that she saw was not bringing about a desirable result. At first he considered this a sort of frivolity, but he understood presently that she not infrequently gave up her own pleasure or method for something that suited M. de Ronville better.

He was ambitious, and he had marked out a career for himself. He meant to be rich and respected, his instincts were all honorable, and this had commended him to his employer, who detested anything bordering on double dealing. So, from one position he had been advanced to another, and by persistent study had taken his degree with honor. He enjoyed the life of the class with which he was in keen touch, and he found he could maintain a degree of mental superiority that satisfied his ambition.

There had been a partnership; he was junior counsel, and some of the clients preferred the young, broad-minded man. Then had come the proffer of a home that really surprised him. There were no relatives to be jealous; why, then, should he not be as a son to this man, who no longer felt equal to the burthen and heat of the new day that had dawned on the country, and was calling forth the highest aims and energies of the men of the time?

There had been one intense fascination in his life that had turned to the ashes of bitterness. And now, while he was affable and enjoyed the society of women, he considered himself proof against their blandishments. He had heard of Daffodil's interrupted marriage, and gave her a very sincere sympathy. But he had not been warmly in favor of her visit. Still, it seemed cruel and selfish not to agree to the longing of the invalid, who had an obstinate idea that his days were numbered. A pet and play-thing was perhaps what he needed, for sometimes the devotion exacted bored him and seemed a painful waste of time and energy.

Then M. de Ronville saw the necessity of arranging his guardianship of Daffodil Carrick on a different basis, so that there might be no trouble at his death. Her father might not understand all the fine points, and need some legal aid. This had brought about the visit to Pittsburg, and he had joined his solicitation to that of the guardian, truly believing M. de Ronville's days were numbered, and he did fervently desire to give him whatever happiness and comfort was possible.

But Daffodil was different from the vague idea he had formed of her. She was not a sentimental girl, even if she had been caught by a specious love, and though gay and eager, had a tender, truthful, and noble side to her nature. They were all of a higher class than he had thought possible, and Felix he considered quite an unusual boy. Mr. Carrick had made one brief explanation of the marriage, none of the others alluded to it.

"But you know that the law holds her as an unmarried woman. There was nothing binding in the vows on her side, and pure fraud on his," said Bartram decisively.

"Yes, we are aware of that, but young as she is, it has changed her in some respects. But she is dearer than ever to us. I deprecate this fashion of such youthful marriages, though mine has been very happy," returned the father.

Dr. Langdale came in one morning with a face full of the highest satisfaction. Bartram had been lingering about, discussing the journey. Madame Clerval had offered one of her French maids, but she knew so little of American ways.

"Daffodil," the doctor exclaimed, "will you take me for an escort? I find there is nothing very important for the next few weeks. I have but one more lecture in my course. And I do want to see mother. So, if you have no objection——"

"Why, I should be delighted, though I begin to feel quite like a wise and travelled body. And think how women are coming from abroad and from Canada, and going West, and all over, and reach their destination safely. But I shall be very glad all the same, and your mother will be wild with joy."

"I am afraid we do not think of the pleasure we can give our elders, who, in the nature of things, have less time for the enjoyment of their children. And I feel ashamed that I have allowed the time to slip by, content with a hurried letter. I mean to do better in the future."

"And I applaud your decision," exclaimed M. de Ronville. "Oh, I think you young people really do not know how much happiness you can give us elders just by the sight of your happy faces, and a little cordial attention."

Daffodil glanced at Dr. Langdale with a smile that seemed almost a caress, it was so approving, enchanting. Aldis Bartram caught it and turned away, saying—

"I must leave you to perfect arrangements. I am late now, so I must wish you good-morning," bowing himself out of the room.

He was very busy, and did not go home to dinner, as he had been doing of late. And it was not until he was walking home in the late afternoon that he allowed himself to think of Daffodil's departure.

"She will marry Dr. Langdale and come back here to live, which will be a great pleasure to M. de Ronville," he said to himself, remembering it had his friend's approval. And why should it not have his? Yet he felt as if he did not cordially assent. And if she returned next winter—he lost a sudden interest in the plan. They would be lovers and there would be their joy and satisfaction flaunted in everybody's face.

How could Daffodil keep so bright and cheerful? Had she any real depth? Did not every change, every new plan appeal to her just the same?

But if he had seen her with her arms about Mrs. Jarvis' neck, and the tears in her eyes, he would not have made the comment to himself. And the tender, beseeching tone in which she was saying—

"Oh, you will not let him miss me too much. And when it is pleasant, won't you walk about the garden with him and praise his roses and the flowers he cares for? And keep him thinking that he is better, and has years yet to live, and if Mr. Bartram will go on being devoted to him."

"Mr. Bartram seems to have grown more tenderly thoughtful. Of course, he has a great deal on his mind, and now there are so many perplexing questions about the country, and when one is tired out with the day's work it is hard to rehearse it all over. Oh, my dear, I think you have worked a change in us all with your sweet, generous ways, and your lovely outflowing youth. I am afraid I was beginning to think too much of my own comfort."

Dr. Langdale proved himself most solicitous. Bartram found the planning was taken quite out of his hands, and he chafed a little. Madame Clerval declared herself inconsolable, but she had the fine grace that speeds the parting guest when the going is inevitable.

There was only one day more. M. de Ronville had his breakfast sent upstairs. Daffodil went to find some papers her guardian was going over, and turning, she met Aldis Bartram entering the library.

"I was afraid you might forget them," she said, handing the packet to him.

"Thank you." How often she had charged her mind with these little things.

"I suppose," he began in a wandering sort of tone, as if his mind had strayed to something else, "that it will not really be out of order to congratulate you, since it will be a long while before I shall see you again."

"Oh, about going home? But I shall often think of you all here, and wish the old fairy stories were true, where you could be transported elsewhere in a moment. I think I did truly believe in them once."

How charming she was in that absolute simplicity, the exquisite, innocent, glowing face too frank for concealment. He had no business to probe her secret, and yet he must know.

"Oh, I meant, you will not come back to us the same. You will have learned the lesson of love, and I hope—you will be very happy."

"I don't understand"—a puzzled line settling in her fair brow. "Oh!" suddenly relieved, and then half smiling, "did you think," and then her face crimsoned to its utmost capacity, "that I, that Dr. Langdale—it is a mistake. We were dear friends in childhood, we are warm friends now. For, you see, he has been like a little bit of Pittsburg to me, and sometimes, when I was longing for the dear ones at home, it was comforting to talk them over. And he has no thought of marrying in a long, long while. He means to do so much first."

Was she a finished coquette by the grace of nature? Young men were not given to consideration of this or that when the bewildering passion seized them. But coquette or not, a sharp, overmastering knowledge seized him. Once she had advised him to marry and bring in the household a charming girl. She recognized that his duty would be to M. de Ronville while he lived. He knew that, too, if he would not prove himself an ingrate. And here was the charming girl.

He looked at her so long and steadily that there came faint colors in her face, growing deeper, the lines about her mouth showed tremors, the bronze-fringed lids drooped over her eyes, and she turned away. But the delicious half-bashful movement set his pulses aflame.

"Daffodil," and he caught her hand, "if there is no other among these young men, or even at home, may I not sue for a little favor? I know it surprises you; then perhaps I am too old to win a young girl's regard, love I mean——"

"Oh, you must not," she interrupted. "For I think you hardly like me—you did not at first. And then, I—well—I do not mean to marry. You know there was the——"

"Which simply has no weight in your life."

"But you see, I thought I loved him. Oh, I did love him. And I was so happy. Why, I would have gone to the end of the world with him! Only when one deceives you, when one dares not tell the whole truth, and when one cannot, does not want to give up wealth and station, what was love is some way crushed out. But how could I tell if any new love was the right thing? I might be mistaken again. And there are fickle women in the world I have heard, who can love many times. I don't desire to be one of them. Maybe it is only friendship I am fitted for."

She was trembling in every pulse, though she had made such a brave defence. And she seemed to him a hundred times sweeter than she ever had before. He had much ado not to clasp her to his heart. "My dear little Daffodil," he said with passionate tenderness, "though you have been wooed and said marriage vows, you know nothing about a true and fervent love. That was not much beyond a child's fancy, and you have overlived it, or you could not be so light-hearted. It is only a dream in your life. And I will wait until the woman's soul in you wakes. But I shall not let you go from my influence, I shall keep watch and ward, and try to win you."

"No, no, I am not worth all that trouble. No, do not try," she pleaded.

"I shall take your earlier advice. You said I must marry some charming girl and bring her here. No other girl or woman could satisfy M. de Ronville as well."

"Did I advise you to do that?" and she blushed daintily. "Well," and there was a glint of mischief in her eyes, soft as they were, "once I was offered to you, and you declined."

"Offered to me?" in surprise.

"When I was here before. It was in this very library. I was outside, and when I knew who was meant I ran away."

"Oh, you were such a child then! And I was doing something that I have always despised myself for. I knew a beautiful and fascinating woman, who led me to believe she cared a great deal for me. And then she laughed at my folly. I deserved it for my blindness. So you see, I too had a rude awakening, and found that it was not love, but a mere sham. I believe for a month or so I have been trying not to love you, shutting my eyes to a longing that stirred all my nature. And now that I have admitted it, it has taken a giant's growth in a few hours. I will wait until you can give me the true, sincere regard of your soul. But I could not let you go until I had settled whether I had any ground for hope. Shall we be friends, dear and fond friends, until that time? But I want to be loved sincerely, deeply."

She stood like a lovely culprit before him, and then he did enfold her in his arms, and pressed his lips against her blushing cheek.

"Oh, I cannot tell—yes, I like you—and you will be good to him while I am gone. But it is new and strange to me, and I cannot promise."

"But there is no one else—tell me that."

"There is no one else. But whether—I can love again;" and there was a great tremble in her voice, "whether it would be right."

"Oh, little innocent, you will find the right and the truth some day, I feel assured of that. I can trust you to tell me by word or sign when that day comes, for I know you will be honest. And now I must go, but I take with me a joy that will make glad the days and weeks of separation. Oh, my little darling!"

He went out of the house with a proud tread. He would never pause until he had won her. His soul was startled and roused by the sudden revelation of himself. He had supposed he should marry sometime, after his duty was done here, for he could not imagine a woman broad enough to share it with him. And here an angel had touched him with her fine beneficence, and shown him the duty in a stronger, truer light.

There was not much time for the ardent side of love, though Aldis Bartram had to fight with himself for a show of mere friendliness. She was to go at ten the next morning, and friends came to escort her.

"And I shall stay and help our good friend to bear the trial of parting," declared Madame Clerval. "We will talk over your virtues and your shortcomings, the lovers you might have had if you had been an astute young woman, and try to shed some sunshine on the doleful days until next winter."

There was the maid with some budgets, there was Dr. Langdale, proud and serene enough for a lover, and it did rouse a spasm of jealousy in the soul of Aldis Bartram. But he knew she was truth itself, and he could depend upon her.

It was a lovely journey if the term could be applied to the old-fashioned stagecoach. But the season of the year, the bloom and beauty everywhere, and the pleasant companionship lightened the few discomforts for Daffodil. There are natures that refrain from spoiling anticipations by cares or perplexities left behind, and hers was one. Indeed, hers was not complex, and people, women especially, had not learned to crowd so many interests, and fears, and hopes together. She would see those she loved the best, yes, she did love them the best of all now.

How glad they were to get her back! Yes, there were changes and changes. New business plans and firms, old ones enlarged, discoveries of coal and iron all about, materials for glass-making, a paper mill under consideration.

But the war was not yet over. The advisers of the King had begun to adopt a tone of insolence toward the young Republic; indeed, in spite of peace being signed, there was still an endeavor to stir up the Indians on the outskirts of many of the towns. The Indian villages along the Maumee received supplies of arms and ammunition, and were fortifying their own forts. The alarm spread down the Ohio. The British had not yet given up all the forts they had held in the preceding war, in spite of the agreements.

Tired of inaction, Lieutenant Langdale had, with several others, offered his services to General Anthony Wayne, as there was great need of trained officers. So Mrs. Langdale was doubly delighted with this visit of her son, of whom she was quite as proud as of her soldier.

"And I hope you have made good your chance with Daffodil Carrick," she said to him a few days after his return. "She'll be quite worth the winning, even if the father's money should all go to the son, who is a very promising lad, I hear. But they count on having a big place over the river, and that is all her share. One of you boys ought to win her. I thought it would be Ned. And you have had a chance all winter."

Archibald smiled, but there was no disappointment in it.

"She was a great favorite all through the winter, and she can marry any time she likes. But I have too much to do to take upon myself family cares, and I think she isn't the sort of girl to be in a hurry. We are just fine, sincere friends."

"But I want you to marry. And I've counted on grandchildren. I wish I had you both settled just around me. I shall be a lonesome old woman."

"Then when I am rich enough to set up a house, you shall come and live with me."

"Do you think Dilly's going to let that miserable mess of a marriage spoil all her life?"

"Oh, she is very happy, mother; girls don't marry as young as they did, and it is a good thing, too. They have some years of bright, gay girlhood, and won't get worn out so soon. Daffodil is a charming girl."

"But she's getting quite along, and it isn't like being a widow either," said the mother, who thought every girl ought to marry.

Daffodil watched mother and grandmere with longing eyes. Yes, grandmere was getting old. Her mother was losing the pretty girlishness, but she was very happy in her husband, and her son, who was tall and very good-looking, quite toned down in manner.

The house had no more changes. Here was her pretty room. Oh, yes, there was a new bright rag carpet on the floor. She went around with a tender touch on everything, patting the white pillow-slips, straightening a picture or two, and wondering in a curious fashion if sometime her brother's wife would be here and a group of merry children—she hoped there would be a houseful of them. And gran would be a great-grandfather, and sit in the big chair at the corner of the fireplace, that he had covered over with buckskin of his own tanning. Where she would be she did not plan. Only she would not mind being an old maid, she thought.

Everybody in the little circle supposed she would marry Dr. Langdale, and were surprised when his mother sorrowfully admitted it was not to be.

"There's them that goes through the woods, and picks up a crooked stick at the last;" and Norah shook her head resentfully.

"My stick won't be crooked, I promise you," laughed the girl.

"You may have no stick at all and go limping afoot and alone," was the curt rejoinder.

She was very happy, why she could hardly tell, for she felt she ought not to be. There came a letter with the stamp of the office on it and it had two enclosures. Her guardian's was most pleasant and fatherly. They missed her very much, but Mrs. Jarvis had taken on a new phase of kindliness so that he should not long too much for Daffodil, and Aldis was like a son. They went out driving together. And Aldis had grown so fond of the garden that he had not used to care much about. The weather was fine and he really was quite well for an old gentleman.

She almost dreaded to open the other. A blinding sort of consciousness pervaded her as if she were a prisoner, as if there was asked of her a curious, undefined surrender that she could hardly understand. Before, she had gone on simply and been overtaken, as it were, given without knowing just what she gave. Was it because she was older, wiser? She had still to learn that there were many mysteries in love that only a lifetime could explain.

She let her eyes wander over it in a vague sort of fashion. Did she really belong to him? He seemed to take possession of her in a way that she could not gainsay, could not even refuse.

But did she want to refuse?

She went out to the keeping room after awhile. Her mother sat alone, sewing some trifle. She came and laid both letters in her lap, then went and sat on the door sill where a great maple threw its green arms about in the soft breeze. There was a cuckoo somewhere, a yellow-hammer searching for half-hidden food, and a thrush with his long, sweet note.

"Yes," her mother remarked, as if in answer to a question. "He laid the matter before your father a month ago in the letter that came with you."

"Oh!" Then after a long while—"Mother, it is nothing like it was before. Then I did not doubt myself, now I wonder. He is so wise in many ways, I feel as if I had to reach up and up and I am a little afraid. I have seen so many fine girls in the city. And beautiful women."

"The woman a man chooses is the best to him always."

She did not torment herself with the thought that he was doing this for her guardian's sake. She felt that he was not the kind of man to take the mere crumbs of love while some one else feasted on the heart of love divine. What troubled her was whether she could love enough. And she hated to think there had been any previous regard. But did he not say, too, that he had been fascinated by an unworthy liking?

The summer seemed to check the wave of prosperity and men looked at each other in half affright. For no one knew just how the tide might turn. When the Indians made their sortie on Fort Recovery word came that the garrison had been massacred, but Captain Gibson bravely held it in spite of an all-day attack, and at night the enemy retreated. General Wayne was in command of all the forces and the Indians made various feints, hoping to be joined by the British, who were urging them on, but there was no big regular battle until that of Fallen Timbers, where a tornado had swept through the woods some time before. A few miles below was a British fort, the meeting place of the western fur traders. It was a hard fought field, but the victory for the Americans was such a signal one that it ended the terror of a frontier war that had hung over the border so long.

No town rejoiced more than Pittsburg, which lost some men and was proud of heroes who had come through the conflict unscathed. Among these was Lieutenant Langdale, whose bravery and foresight gained him a captaincy.

"He's a brave fellow!" declared grandad, and Daffodil was glad he had won some of the fame and glory for which he had longed.

"It's fine to be a soldier when you can fight and have nothing happen to you," declared Felix. "But I wouldn't want to be among the killed. There's so many splendid things in life. I hope I will live to be a hundred."

There were many matters to share Daffodil's attention, though she did miss the bright society and the knowledge branching out on every side. Yet these girls who had married half a dozen years ago and had grown common and careless with their little ones about them seemed very happy. It certainly was an industrious community, but they played as they worked. There were games that would have been no discredit to modern scores, there was dancing and merriment and happiness as well.

Was Daffodil learning her lesson? Aldis Bartram thought very slowly. But he was a man who prized hard won contests. And if with the attractive young men about her through the winter she had not been won, then she was not an easy prize. He smiled at times over her careful and futile reasoning. At least they would have the winter to go over the ground. And though he was becoming an ardent lover he was not an impatient one.

There are some events and decisions in life that are precipitated by a shock, the film that held one in thrall, veiling the clear sight, is suddenly disrupted. And this happened to Daffodil Carrick. Her father put an English paper in her hand one evening as he came up the path where roses were still blooming. It had been remailed in Philadelphia.

"From Madame Clerval," she said with a smile. "Some gay doings, I fancy. She has friends in London."

She glanced it over carelessly. The summer struggles had made her more of a patriot, and brought to her mind vividly the morning she had run out to know the cause of Kirsty Boyle's call and the ringing of his bell. A very little girl. She was always glad she had heard it.

She turned the paper to and fro rather impatiently. Oh, what was here with the black insignia of death: "Died, at Hurst Abbey, of a malignant fever. Margaretta, wife of Jeffrey, Lord Andsdell, only remaining son of the Earl of Wrenham."

She was not interested in the beauty of the bride, who had been a great belle in her day and won no little fame on the stage, nor the terrible accident that had deprived the Earl of two older sons and two grandsons, paving the way for the succession of Lord Andsdell. She shuddered and turned ghostly pale, and was terrified with a strange presentiment. But she could not talk of it just yet and was glad Norry and grandad came in to spend the evening with them.

The next morning she gave her father a little note with "important" written on the corner of the folded paper.

"What now?" enquired her father laughingly, "Did you forget your postscript?"

She assented with a nod.

Then she went about her daily duties, but a great terror surged at her heart. She was to remember through everything that she was the only woman Jeffrey Andsdell loved. Long ago she had cast it out. No doubt he had been happy in his ancestral home, at least, he had chosen that, well, wisely, too. But to ask that the woman he wronged should cling to her burthen!

How slowly the days passed. Aldis Bartram might have been away when the note came—he had been to Baltimore on some troublesome business—but waiting seemed very hard. And when it drew near to the time, she used to take different paths down by the square where the stage came in, just far enough away to see, but not be seen, and stand with a blushing face and a strange trembling at her heart. One day she was rewarded. There was the manly figure, the erect head, the firm, yet elastic step. A sudden pride leaped up in her heart.

She waylaid him in a bypath.

"Daffodil!" he cried in surprise. "What has happened?

"Nothing, nothing; I wanted to see you," but her voice trembled. "Come this way."

"How mysterious you are!" If she meant to give him his congé she could have done it better by letter. And the clasp of her hand on his arm had a clinging force.

"There is something for you to see. Let us turn here."

After a space through intervening trees they came to the open, where she paused and unfolded a paper she had held in her hand. "Read this," she said, and he stared a moment silently.

One moment, another moment. How still it was, every bird had hushed its singing, even the crickets were not chirping.

"He will come back to America. He will come back for you now that he is free," Bartram subjoined hoarsely. Should he hold her or let her go? Was the old love——

She faced him and slipped both hands over his shoulders, clasped them at the back of his neck. It seemed to him he had never seen such an entrancing light in her eyes.

"Aldis," she began, with tremulous sweetness, "I would rather be your wife than the greatest duchess of them all." And then she hid her blushing face on his breast.

It would not be raised, but he kissed the brow, the eyelids, and said in a shaken voice:

"Were you afraid——"

Then she raised the sweet face where he saw tears and the quick rifts of color, but there were high lights of resolve in the beautiful eyes.

"Not afraid anything could rekindle the glamor of that mistake, nor any repentance on his part mend the deception. I was a child then. I did not understand the depths that go to the making of a true love. All summer I have been learning——"

Then she paused and hid her face again.

"And there is a great deal more to learn, sweetheart. We shall go on studying the delightful lesson all our lives, I trust, and never reach the bottom of the cup of joy. Daffodil, you have already roused me to a wider, higher life. A year ago I would not have been worthy of you. Yes, I was blind and self-engrossed then. We will study the sweet lesson together."

Then they paused at a fallen log, not the old place that she never cared to see again. A little stream came trickling down the high hill and there were tender bird voices as accompaniments to the delicious confession. It had grown slowly, she was so afraid of another mistake, but he would never need to doubt its truth, its duration, its comprehensiveness.

It seemed minutes only and yet held the mysterious sweetness of hours. Then she heard a voice calling.

"Why—see! It is almost night! And that is Felix's voice. Oh, what have I been doing?" and she rose in a startled manner.

"We will explain our iniquity," he said laughingly.

They met Felix. "Oh!" he exclaimed in surprise. "We couldn't think! And we had supper."

Then mother said, "Why, did you come in the stage? That was here hours ago," to Mr. Bartram, in a wondering tone.

"Yes; but we had a good deal of business to settle. I hope you didn't eat up all the supper?"

He studied them both curiously. Daffodil's face was scarlet.

"Mr. Bartram, are you going to marry her?" he asked with a boy's frank eagerness.

"I hope to. Are you going to object?"

"No," rather reluctantly. "Only I wish you were going to live here."

Bernard Carrick had gone downtown. It showed the strides Pittsburg had made when there was already a downtown. Barbe stood in the doorway watching, for now the sky was growing gray with coming evening. But before Mr. Bartram spoke, she knew. One of the delights of the other engagement had been the certainty of keeping her daughter, now the pang of separation pierced her to the quick.

"Mrs. Carrick," he said in an appealing tone, "will you take me for a son?" but Daffodil kissed her.

They did not want much supper, but the others returned to the table and talked. He had only come for a few days, but he begged that they might have a wedding in the early fall, just as soon as possible indeed, for the journey was so long they could not afford to waste much time in courtship. They must be lovers afterward.

So, after much discussion to shorten the time, mid-September was settled upon.

"Oh," Daffodil said in her most adorable tone, "I shall pray daily that nothing will befall you, that God will send you back safely to me."

"And I shall be praying for you. Love surely opens one's heart to God."

There was not much to be made ready. The girl laid aside this and that for the son's wife when he should take one, "for," said she, "there is so much in my new house already. And Felix must marry young, so you will have a new daughter in my place."

She would not be married in church nor wear the olden wedding gown. "Let it skip a generation," she said, "and that may change the luck."

So the time came and the lover so full of impatience. She would have the ceremony in the old room that had been so interwoven with her life, and she fancied the spirit of great-grandfather was sitting there in the old chair and she went for his blessing.

The little girl passed out of Old Pittsburg and left behind lonely hearts. Grandad could not be reconciled, there were some fine young fellows in the town that would make good husbands. But Norah gave her a blessing and the best of wishes. So Daffodil Bartram went out to her new life, wondering how one could be so glad and happy when they were leaving behind so much love.

Old Pittsburg did not vanish with the little girl, however. But she went on her way steadily, industriously. The new century came in with great acclaim. Shipbuilding prospered. Iron foundries sprang up. The glass works went from the eight pots and the capacity of three boxes at a blowing to double that number, then doubled it again. The primitive structure erected by George Anshuts before the century ended was the progenitor of many others sending their smoke defiantly up in the clear sky. And all along the Monogahela valley as well as in other places the earth gave up its stores of coal as it had given up its stores of iron.

And in 1816 Pittsburg was incorporated as a city and had a mayor and aldermen and her own bank. It was a new Pittsburg then, a hive of human industry, where one business after another gathered and where fortunes were evolved from real work, and labor reaps a rich reward.

There are not many of the old things left. The block house built in 1764 by Colonel Bouquet still stands. A great depot covers the site of the ancient Fort, and the spot of Braddock's defeat. But there are Duquesne Heights, all her hills have not been levelled, if most of the old things have passed away. She is the workshop of the world now, one writer calls her "the most unique city in the world." And she has not neglected the finer arts of beautifying. She has magnificent buildings, fine libraries, and cultivated people, musical societies, and half a hundred benevolent institutions. And we must not forget that in six days after the firing on Fort Sumter a company of Pittsburgers marched to Washington and offered their services to the secretary of war.

If the little girl had vanished, Daffodil Bartram found much happiness in the new home. M. de Ronville was not only delighted, but grateful over his two children who were not of kindred blood, but of the finer and higher kin of love. There came children to the household, three boys and one golden-haired girl, but he did not quite reach the years of his friend Duvernay. And when the two older sons were grown they cast their lot with Allegheny City, which in the course of time grew into a lovely residential city, free from smoke and dust and noise, and theirs proved a noble patrimony. The Bartrams still had a son and daughter, and the journey to Pittsburg no longer had to be made in a stage coach.

Felix Duvernay Carrick made one of the notable citizens of the town, the author of several useful inventions and a most thriving business man, not needing any of his sister's fortune, for grandad left him one, beside the one he was making with his brains and industry. And Barbe was a happy grandmother to a merry flock, but she would never leave the old house, though the farm was cut up by streets and houses crowded in upon them. And she kept her bed of daffodils to the very last.

If there was not so much romance, it was the old story of the Rhinegelt of the land and the rivers yielding up such treasures as few cities possess, but without the tragedy of their legend. Work and thrift and the ingenuity of man have reared a magnificent city.