Daisy

"So altogether," my aunt went on, turning for a moment to Mme. Ricard, "there was a doubt about it; and your father said, he charged me to tell Daisy, that if she will make herself contented – that is, supposing they cannot come home next year, you know – if she will make herself happy and be patient and bear one or two years more, and stay at school and do the best she can, then, the year after next or the next year he will send for you, your father says, unless they come home themselves – they will send for you; and then, your father says, he will give you any request you like to make of him. Ask anything you can think of, that you would like best, and he will do it or get it, whatever it is. He didn't say like King Herod, 'to the half of his kingdom,' but I suppose he meant that. And meanwhile, you know you have a guardian now, Daisy, and there is no use for me in your affairs; and having conveyed to you your mother's gifts and your father's promises, I suppose there is nothing further for me to do to you."

I was silent yet, thinking. Two years more would be a dear purchase of any pleasure that might come after. Two years! And four were gone already. It seemed impossible to wait or to bear it. I heard no more of what my aunt was saying, till she turned to me again and asked, "Where are you going to pass the vacation?"

I did not know, for Mrs. Sandford was obliged to be with her sister still, so that I could not go to Melbourne.

"Well, if your new guardian thinks well of it – you can consult him if it is necessary – and if he does not object, you can be with me if you like. Preston has leave of absence this summer, I believe; and he will be with us."

It was in effect arranged so. My aunt took me about the country from one watering place to another; from Saratoga to the White Mountains; and Preston's being with us made it a gay time. Preston had been for two years at West Point; he was grown and improved everybody said; but to me he was just the same. If anything, not improved; the old grace and graciousness of his manner was edged with an occasional hardness or abruptness which did not use to belong to him, and which I did not understand. There seemed to be a latent cause of irritation somewhere.

However, my summer went off smoothly enough. September brought me back to Mme. Ricard's, and in view of Miss Cardigan's late roses and budding chrysanthemums. I was not sorry. I had set my heart on doing as much as could be done in these next two years, if two they must be.

I was the first in my room; but before the end of the day they all came pouring in; the two older and the two younger girls. "Here's somebody already," exclaimed Miss Macy as she saw me. "Why, Daisy Randolph! is it possible that's you? Is it Daisy Randolph? What have you done to yourself? How you have improved!"

"She is very much improved," said Miss Bentley more soberly.

"She has been learning the fashions," said Miss Lansing, her bright eyes dancing as good-humouredly as ever. "Daisy, now when your hair gets long you'll look quite nice. That frock is made very well."

"She is changed," said Miss St. Clair, with a look I could not quite make out.

"No," I said; "I hope I am not changed."

"Your dress is," said St. Clair.

I thought of Dr. Sandford's "L'habit, c'est l'homme." "My mother had this dress made," I said; "and I ordered the other one; that is all the difference."

"You're on the right side of the difference, then," said Miss St. Clair.

"Has your mother come back, Daisy?" Miss Lansing asked.

"Not yet. She sent me this from Paris."

"It's very pretty!" she said, with, I saw, an increase of admiration; but St. Clair gave me another strange look. "How much prettier Paris things are than American!" Lansing went on. "I wish I could have all my dresses from Paris. Why, Daisy, you've grown handsome."

"Nonsense!" said Miss Macy; "she always was, only you didn't see it."

"Style is more than a face," said Miss St. Clair cavalierly. Somehow I felt that this little lady was not in a good mood awards me. I boded mischief; for being nearly of an age, we were together in most of our classes, studied the same things, and recited at the same times. There was an opportunity for clashing.

They soon ran off, all four, to see their friends and acquaintances and learn the news of the school. I was left alone, making my arrangement of clothes and things in my drawer and my corner of the closet; and I found that some disturbance, in those few moments, had quite disarranged the thoughts of my heart. They were peaceful enough before. There was some confusion now. I could not at first tell what was uppermost; only that St. Clair's words were those that most returned to me. "She has changed." Had I changed? or was I going to change? was I going to enter the lists of fashion with my young companions, and try who would win the race? No doubt my mother could dress me better than almost any of their mothers could dress them; what then? would this be a triumph? or was this the sort of name and notoriety that became and befitted a servant of Jesus? I could not help my dresses being pretty; no, but I could help making much display of them. I could wear my own school plaid when the weather grew cooler; and one or two others of my wardrobe were all I need show. "Style is more than a face." No doubt. What then? Did I want style and a face too? Was I wishing to confound St. Clair? Was I escaping already from that bond and a mark of a Christian – "The world knoweth us not?" I was startled and afraid. I fell down on my knees by the side of my bed, and tried to look at the matter as God looked at it. And the Daisy I thought he would be pleased with, was one who ran no race for worldly supremacy. I resolved she should not. The praise of God, I thought, was far better than the praise of men.

My mind was quite made up when I rose from my knees; but I looked forward to a less quiet school term than the last had been. Something told me that the rest of the girls would take me up now, for good and for evil. My Paris dress set me in a new position, no longer beneath their notice. I was an object of attention. Even that first evening I felt the difference.

"Daisy, when is your mother coming home?" "Oh, she is gone to China; Daisy's mother is gone to China!" – "She'll bring you lots of queer things, won't she?" – "What a sweet dress!" – "That didn't come from China?" – "Daisy, who's head in mathematics, you or St. Clair? I hope you will get before her!"

"Why?" I ventured to ask.

"Oh, you're the best of the two; everybody knows that. But St. Clair is smart, isn't she?"

"She thinks she is," answered another speaker; "she believes she's at the tip-top of creation; but she never had such a pretty dress on as that in her days; and she knows it and she don't like it. It's real fun to see St. Clair beat; she thinks she is so much better than other girls, and she has such a way of twisting that upper lip of hers. Do you know how St. Clair twists her upper lip? Look! – she's doing it now."

"She's handsome though, ain't she?" said Miss Macy. "She'll be beautiful."

"No," said Mlle. Géneviève; "not that. Never that. She will be handsome; but beauty is a thing of the soul. She will not be beautiful. Daisy, are you going to work hard this year?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"I believe you," she said, taking my face between her two hands and kissing it.

"Whoever saw Mlle. Géneviève do that before!" said Miss Macy, as the other left us. "She is not apt to like the scholars."

I knew she had always liked me. But everybody had always liked me, I reflected; this time at school was the first of my knowing anything different. And in this there now came a change. Since my wearing and using the Paris things sent to me by my mother, which I dared not fail to use and wear, I noticed that my company was more sought in the school. Also my words were deferred to, in a way they had not been before. I found, and it was not an unpleasant thing, that I had grown to be a person of consequence. Even with the French and English teachers; I observed that they treated me with more consideration. And so I reflected within myself again over Dr. Sandford's observation, "L'habit, c'est l'homme." Of course it was a consideration given to my clothes, a consideration also to be given up if I did not wear such clothes. I saw all that. The world knew me, just for the moment.

Well, the smooth way was very pleasant. I had it with everybody for a time.

My little room-mate and classmate St. Clair was perhaps the only exception to the general rule. I never felt that she liked me much. She let me alone, however; until one unlucky day – I do not mean to call it unlucky, either – when we had, as usual, compositions to write, and the theme given out was "Ruins." It was a delightful theme to me. I did not always enjoy writing compositions; this one gave me permission to roam in thoughts and imaginations that I liked. I went back to my old Egyptian studies at Magnolia, and wrote my composition about "Karnak." The subject was full in my memory; I had gone over and over and all through it; I had measured the enormous pillars and great gateways, and studied the sculpture on the walls, and paced up and down the great avenue of sphinxes. Sethos, and Amunoph and Rameses, the second and third, were all known and familiar to me; and I knew just where Shishak had recorded his triumphs over the land of Judea. I wrote my composition with the greatest delight. The only danger was that I might make it too long.

One evening I was using the last of the light, writing in the window recess of the school parlour, when I felt a hand laid on my shoulders.

"You are so hard at work!" said the voice of Mlle. Géneviève.

"Yes, mademoiselle, I like it."

"Have you got all the books and all that you want?"

"Books, mademoiselle?" – I said wondering.

"Yes; have you got all you want?"

"I have not got any books," I said; "there are none that I want in the school library."

"Have you never been in madame's library?"

"No, mademoiselle."

"Come!"

I jumped up and followed her, up and down stairs and through halls and turnings, till she brought me into a pretty room lined with books from floor to ceiling. Nobody was there. Mademoiselle lit the gas with great energy, and then turned to me, her great black eyes shining.

"Now what do you want, mon enfant? here is everything."

"Is there anything about Egypt?"

"Egypt! Are you in Egypt? See here – look, here is Denon – here is Laborde; here are two or three more. Do you like that? Ah! I see by the way your grey eyes grow big – Now sit down, and do what you like. Nobody will disturb you. You can come here every evening for the hour before tea."

Mademoiselle scarce stayed for my thanks, and left me alone. I had not seen either Laborde or Denon in my grandfather's library at Magnolia; they were after his time. The engravings and illustrations also had not been very many or very fine in his collection of travellers' books. It was the greatest joy to me to see some of those things in Mme. Ricard's library, that I had read and dreamed about so long in my head. It was adding eyesight to hearsay. I found a good deal too that I wanted to read, in these later authorities. Evening after evening I was in madame's library, lost among the halls of the old Egyptian conquerors.

The interest and delight of my work quite filled me, so that the fate of my composition hardly came into my thoughts, or the fact that other people were writing compositions too. And when it was done, I was simply very sorry that it was done. I had not written it for honour or for duty, but for love. I suppose that was the reason why it succeeded. I remember I was anything but satisfied with it myself, as I was reading it aloud for the benefit of my judges. For it was a day of prize compositions; and before the whole school and even some visitors, the writings of the girls were given aloud, each by its author. I thought, as I read mine, how poor it was, and how magnificent my subject demanded that it should be. Under the shade of the great columns, before those fine old sphinxes, my words and myself seemed very small. I sat down in my place again, glad that the reading was over.

But there was a little buzz; then a dead expectant silence; then Mme. Ricard arose. My composition had been the last one. I looked up with the rest, to hear the award that she would speak; and was at first very much confounded to hear my own name called. "Miss Randolph – " It did not occur to me what it was spoken for; I sat still a moment in a maze. Mme. Ricard stood waiting; all the room was in a hush.