Daisy In The Field

I had not seen him now for several weeks; and I never saw him

look better. It immediately struck me, that with him well, it

mattered comparatively little whether Mr. Thorold and I were

in the same place together or not. Dr. Sandford's clear blue

eye was not to be braved with impunity. No more was it to be

shunned. But I needed not to shun it. I met it full now. I

could, since last night. The disposal of my affairs, if it was

not in me, it certainly was not in him. He met me with a smile

and a look of pleasure; and sat down by me to watch the

progress of my worsted work. So ostensibly; but I soon knew

that he was watching not my work, but me.

"How have these weeks been with Miss Randolph? Dull?"

"No," I said; - "not dull."

"How have they escaped that?"

"There has been too much to interest, Dr. Sandford."

"Yet I see you at your Berlin wools. Pardon me - but whenever

I see a lady busy with her needle and a bit of canvass, I

always think she is hard up for something to think of. Pardon

again, Daisy. I know you have no mercy upon slang."

"See how mistaken you are, Dr. Sandford."

"In that? Not in that."

"No; but in your notions about wool and canvass."

"They are true!" said the doctor.

"Ah, but, don't you know that extremes meet?"

"What extremes?"

"All extremes, perhaps. I have been working worsted; for a

day or two, just because I had so much to think of."

"They have been exciting days," said the doctor slowly, "to a

sick man who could do nothing."

"Why not to a woman, for the same reason?"

"Have they tried you very much, Daisy?"

"Why, she was turning faint here a little while ago," broke in

Mrs. Sandford, "because I was giving an account of some

wounded soldiers I had read about in the papers; and the major

and I persuaded her to go out and take a walk to recover

herself."

"The major? - that is indefinite, though you use the definite

article. What major?"

"Oh, we have a number of military friends. They have kept us

alive since you have been shut up. What is this one, Daisy? He

is a very good one. Major Fairbairn."

"Fairbairn? I do not know him," said the doctor.

"It is not necessary that you should know everybody," said his

sister-in-law. "Daisy knows him very well."

"And likes him -" said the doctor; "or he could not have a

share in persuading Miss Randolph to anything."

"Yes, I like him," I said. I thought, the more friends in the

army I had, the better; and also, that Dr. Sandford must not

be permitted to push his lines too far.