"No - only for their effect upon his happiness," I ventured,
doubtfully.
"You think the effect of troubles upon happiness is then
optional!" - he said, with a humorous expression so cool and
shrewd that I could not forbear laughing.
"I do not mean exactly that."
"Your words were well chosen to produce that impression."
"No, Dr. Sandford - yes, perhaps they were; - but the real
truth is, that we may have a happiness that is beyond the
reach of trouble. So much is optional."
"With Daisy Randolph," said the doctor. "For the rest of the
world, a brown study will never be a golden reflection." He
held out his hand as he spoke.
"But are you going?" I said; - "before my father and mother
come home?"
"I will call before I leave Lucerne."
"How soon do you expect to do that?"
"Immediately, Daisy; to-morrow. I must hasten back to my post,
you know; before there is another Bull Run, if possible. It is
very good that you are out of the way of such things," he
said, eyeing me earnestly. "The very mention of them - do you
know what it does?"
"It gives me a great feeling of pain, I know," I said, trying
to rally.
"It does that, I see. I did not know the power of imagination
was so strong in you. I thought you were rather a literalist."
"And I think I am," I answered as calmly as I could. "It does
not require much imagination. It did not, when I was in
Washington."
"It does not now," said the doctor; "for your cheeks have not
got back their colour yet. What banished it, Daisy?"
It was the old tone and look I used to meet in my childhood,
and to which I always then rendered obedience. For an instant
the spell was upon me now; then I threw it off, shook hands
with the doctor and parted from him with a bow and smile which
told him nothing. And he succumbed in his turn; made me a
profound reverence and left the room.
My first feeling was of gladness that he was gone. My next
was, the sense that I was under my natural guardians once
more. I felt it with a thrill of delight, even though I had a
full consciousness that I was going to be far less my own
mistress than for some time I had been accustomed to find
myself. Dr. Sandford rather took laws from me, in most things.
This however did not give me much concern. I went round the
rooms to quiet myself, for I was growing more and more
excited. I went studying one by one the objects in the little
home museum, for such those drawing-rooms were to me. I read,
not natural history but family history in them; here my
father's hand had been, here By mother's, leaving some token
of study, or luxury, or art, or feeling. A very handsome
meerschaum seemed to give also a hint of my brother's
presence. The home review did not quiet me; I found it would
not do; I went to the window. And there I sat down
immediately, to hear all that nature said to me; as once Miss
Cardigan's flowers.