Daisy In The Field

One desire possessed me, pressing before every other; it was

to see Miss Cardigan. I thought I should accomplish this very

soon after my landing. I found that I must wait for days.

It was very hard to wait. Yet mamma needed me; she was nervous

and low-spirited and unwell and lonely; she could not endure

to have me long out of her sight. She never looked with favour

upon any proposal of mine to go out, even for a walk; and I

could hardly get permission. I fancied that some - latent -

suspicion lay beneath all this unwillingness, which did not

make it more easy to bear. But I got leave at last, one

afternoon early in June; and took my way up the gay

thoroughfares of Broadway and the Avenue.

It was June, June all over. Just like the June of four years

ago, when Dr. Sandford took me away from school to go to West

Point; like the June of three years ago, when I had been

finishing my school work, before I went to Washington. I was a

mere girl then; now, I seemed to myself at least twenty years

older. June sweetness was in all the air; June sunlight

through all the streets; roses blossomed in courtyards and

looked out of windows; grass was lush and green; people were

in summer dresses. I hurried along, my breath growing shorter

as I went. The well-known corner of Mme. Ricard's

establishment came into view, and bright school-days with it.

Miss Cardigan's house opposite looked just as I had left it;

and as I drew near I saw that this was literally so. The

flowers were blossoming in the garden plots and putting their

faces out of window, exactly as if I had left them but a day

ago. My knees trembled under me then, as I went up the steps

and rang the bell. A strange servant opened to me. I went in,

to her astonishment I suppose, without asking any questions;

which indeed I could not. What if a second time I should find

Mr. Thorold here? Such a thought crossed me as I trod the

familiar marble floor, after the wild fashion in which our

wishes mock our reason; then it left me the next instant, in

my gladness to see through the opening door the figure of my

dear old friend. Just as I had left her also. Something, in

the wreck of my world, had stood still and suffered no change.

I went in and stood before her. She pulled off her spectacles,

looked at me, changed colour and started up. I can hardly tell

what she said. I think I was in too great a confusion for my

senses to do their office perfectly. But her warm arms were

about me, and my head found a hiding-place on her shoulder.