"Would you? Then you are not afraid lest the rebels should
take Washington and confiscate the whole of us?"
"Major Fairbairn thinks the danger of that is past."
"He does! However, other dangers might arise -"
"I knew you would not think Washington very safe ground for
us," Mrs. Sandford rejoined.
"Mrs. Sandford is at her own risk. But I should hardly be
doing the duty of a good guardian if I risked anything, where
so important a charge is committed to me. I shall get you away
from here without delay. How soon can you both be ready?"
I wanted to say I was ready, but I could not get out the
words. My two friends debated the matter, and the doctor fixed
his own time. The day after to-morrow.
It was good for me, that I had given up the charge of my own
interests; or I never could have maintained the ease of manner
which it was desirable to maintain in face of this
proposition. I was very calm, remembering that "a man's heart
deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps." I went on
with my worsted stitching under the eye of the doctor. I do
not know why he watched me so.
"Has anybody ventured to tell you, Miss Randolph, that you
have changed within a few months?" This question was put after
I had forgotten the doctor and was marching somewhere before a
battery in Patterson's column. I started a little.
"Yes, indeed! has she not?" exclaimed Mrs. Sandford. "Changed!
She came out of school the dearest little schoolgirl that ever
lived; or I should say, she went back to school so, last year.
What has the year done to you, Daisy?"
"What has it done to me?" I replied, smiling at her. "How am I
changed?"
"Changed!" Mrs. Sandford repeated. "Tell her, Grant, what is
she now?"
"She would not thank me for telling her," said the doctor.
"But I will thank you, Mrs. Sandford," I said. "I was 'the
dearest little schoolgirl.' "
"My dear, you are not that now," Mrs. Sandford said solemnly.
"It all comes to this, Daisy," said the doctor. "You are a
psychological puzzle to me. For the matter of that, now I
think of it, you always were. When you went to visit Molly
Skelton, and carried rose-bushes round the country in your
pony-chaise, just as much as now. You are not the same Daisy,
however."
"Yes, I am; just the same," I said earnestly.
"Fancy it!" said Mrs. Sandford. "My dear, you do I not see
yourself; that is clear."
"I would like to do the same things again," I insisted. But
that nearly choked me. For a vision of myself in my happy
pony-chaise; the free, joyous child that I was, ignorant of
soldiers and wars, further than as I knew my dear Captain
Drummond; the vision of the Daisy that once was, and could
never be again; went nigh to shake all my composure down. The
emotion came with a rush, and I had nearly succumbed to it.