cannot help it now, if I would."

"But, Daisy -" said Miss Cardigan, and she was evidently
perplexed now herself. - "Since you are ready to obey them in
the utmost and give up Thorold if they say so, what is there,
my dear, which your father and mother could command _now_ in
which you are not ready to obey them?"

"The time has not come, Miss Cardigan," I said. "It may be -
you know it may be - long, before they need know anything
about it; before, I mean, anything could be done. I am going
abroad - Christian will be busy here - and they might tell me
not to think of him and not to write to him; and - I can't
live so. It is fair to give him and myself the chance. It is
fair that they should know him and see him before they hear
what he wants of them; or at least before they answer it."

"Give him and yourself the _chance_ - of what, Daisy?"

"I don't know," I said faint-heartedly. "Of what time may do."

"Then you think -my dear, you augur ill of your father's and
mother's opinion of your engagement?"

"I can't help it now, Miss Cardigan," I said; and I know I
spoke firmly then. "I did not know what I was doing - I did
not know what was coming. If I had known, if I could have
helped myself, I think I ought not to have loved anybody or
let anybody speak to me without my father and mother choosing
it; but it was all done before I could in the least help it;