DAISY
Daisy. Page 20.
DAISY
BY
MARSHALL SAUNDERS
Author of “Beautiful Joe”
“A little child shall lead them”
PHILADELPHIA
CHARLES H. BANES
1420 Chestnut Street
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This little story, by Miss Marshall Saunders, author of “Beautiful Joe,” appeared some years ago in England, in the interests of a benevolent institution. It has seemed worthy of a wider publication, and hence it is brought out in its present dress. The infantile grace and quaint ways of the little child; her influence in shaping a somewhat warped life, with all its incidental lessons, and the final happy ending of it all, will give the little story, we are sure, a wide audience and a cordial reception.
CONTENTS
Chapter I
A Baby’s Grace
Chapter II
Sunshine and Shadow
Chapter III
Almost Lost
Chapter IV
Life’s Benediction
CHAPTER I
A Baby’s Grace
ONE evening, Mrs. Drummond, the tired, careworn woman who presided over our boarding house, glanced down the well-spread table, and informed us that the next day we were to have a new boarder—a Mr. Robertson, a young bank clerk who had lately come from England to our prosperous Canadian town.
I knew the lad by reputation, and the next morning when he sauntered into the dining room, I looked at him carefully. Poor boy, his eye was heavy, and his step languid. In his foolish endeavors to “see life,” he was fast losing the purity of heart and mind with which he had quitted his far-away home, and it was making its mark upon him in a way not to be mistaken.
He sat opposite me, and I could see that he was making a mere pretence of taking his breakfast.
Presently, there was a remark from Mrs. Drummond’s end of the table. The child was speaking—the child par excellence, for there was not another one in the house. She was a curious little creature—willful, disdainful, neglected by her mother, and suspicious of all other mortals. Petting she despised, and invariably showed symptoms of displeasure if disturbed in her favorite occupation of playing with an ugly, yellow cat in dark corners of the house. But the strangest thing of all was her quietness. She never romped like other children, never prattled; indeed, she rarely spoke at all, so we were all attention as she pointed to young Robertson with her spoon, and said in a clear, babyish voice, “Dat’s a berry fine-lookin’ boy, mamma.”
Everybody smiled, for the boy in question, though manly and stalwart in appearance, had a decidedly plain face. He blushed a little, and bent over his plate. Mrs. Drummond took her hand from the coffee-urn long enough to lay it on Daisy’s head: “Hush, child, you must not talk at the table.”
“Wemove dat hand,” said the child, in a displeased tone. Then rapping on the table with her spoon, to call Robertson’s attention, she asked, “Boy, what’s your name?”
“Roland Robertson,” he replied, with an embarrassed laugh.
