"Is that Daisy?" said mamma. I was sitting on papa's knee yet.
I looked up at her. She was standing beside us.
"Doesn't she look like it?" my father said, fondly, stroking
my hair.
"She does not act like it," said my mother.
But I hid my face in papa's neck at that, and he kissed me
again.
"Don't you mean to speak to anybody else?" said mamma, with an
amused voice.
"Nobody else has any right," said papa. I looked up however,
eagerly, and saw what I could only guess was Ransom, he had so
grown and changed. He was looking curious and pleased. I got
up to salute him.
"Why, Daisy!" said he, returning my embrace with more new than
old emotion as it seemed to me, - "you are a sister of whom a
fellow may be proud."
"Can't you say as much for him, Daisy?" said my mother.
"As far as looks go -" I answered slowly, surveying him. He
was excessively handsome, and his mother's own boy in grace of
person and manner. I could see that in the first moment.
"As far as looks go" - my mother repeated. "That is like
Daisy. Is it the very same Daisy?"
I looked up at her, and they looked at me. Oddly enough, we
were all silent. Had I changed so much?
"Mamma, there is the difference between ten and seventeen," I
said. "I don't think there is much other."
"And between formed and unformed," said my brother Ransom; for
my father and mother were still silent, and I could hardly
bear to meet their eyes.
"What is formed, and what is unformed?" I asked, trying to
make it a light question.
"My opinion is not unformed," said Ransom, - "and your destiny
is - formed."
"Papa," said I, "Ransom is very quick in deciding upon my
destiny." But with that look into each other's eyes, Ransom's
words were forgotten; my father clasped me in a fresh fond
embrace and my head went down upon his shoulder again. And we
were all still. Words are nothing at such times. I think one
rather speaks light words, if any; thoughts are too deep to
come out. At last my mother remarked that our toilettes were
among the unformed things, and suggested that we should go to
our rooms for a little while before dinner. I got up from
papa's knee and followed mamma; and passing Ransom with a
smile, he suddenly clasped me in his arms and kissed me.
"I am proud of you, Daisy," he whispered.
Arrived in mamma's room, her tenderness came out after her own
fashion. She examined me; her hands touched me caressingly;
she helped me to dress, although her maid was at hand.
"You did not tell me you had such beautiful hair," she said,
when I had unbound it to put it in order.