"I didn't know how late it was, mamma."

"Where have you been?"

"I was picking wintergreens with Nora Dinwiddie."

"I hope you brought me some," said Mr. Randolph.

"O I did, papa; only I have not put them in order yet."

"And where did you and Nora part?"

"Here, at the door, mamma."

"Was she alone?"

"No, ma'am--Mr. Dinwiddie found us in the wood, and he took her home,
and he brought me home first."

Daisy was somewhat of a diplomatist. Perhaps a little natural reserve of
character might have been the beginning of it, but the habit had
certainly grown from Daisy's experience of her mother's somewhat
capricious and erratic views of her movements. She could not but find
out that things which to her father's sense were quite harmless and
unobjectionable, were invested with an unknown and unexpected character
of danger or disagreeableness in the eyes of her mother; neither could
Daisy get hold of any chain of reasoning by which she might know
beforehand what would meet her mother's favour and what would not. The
unconscious conclusion was, that reason had little to do with it; and
the consequence, that without being untrue, Daisy had learned to be very