said smiling. "With half a right to you."

"Yes - with that, - and without writing to me," I answered.

"Daisy!" exclaimed Thorold, raising himself half up.

"Yes," I said - "I know - I have been wanting to talk to you
about it. You _know_, Christian, I could not write nor receive
your letters without my father's and mother's permission."

"Can _you_ bear that, Daisy?" he asked.

My heart seemed to turn sick. His words suggested nothing new,
but they were his words. I failed to answer, and my face went
down in my hands.

"There, is no need of that, darling," he said, getting one of
them and putting it to his lips. "Here you are fearing dangers
again. Daisy -with truth on your side and on mine, nothing can
separate us permanently."

"But for the present," - I said as soon as I could speak. "I
am sure our chance for the future is better if we are patient
and wait now."

"Patient, and wait?" said Mr. Thorold. "If we are patient now?
What do you mean by patience? You in Switzerland, with half a
hundred suitors by turns; and I here in the smoke of artillery
practice, unable to see twenty yards from my drill - and _that_,
you think, does not call for patience, but you must cut off