Our petite Heroine--How she talked to the Poets--The Morocco Case--Daisy's Eyes make Pictures--Tears, idle Tears! 

 

Mortimer was still sleeping an "azure-lidded sleep," as Keats has it, when Daisy again came softly to the door. A pretty little woman was Daisy Snarle. She had one of those faces which you sometimes pass in the street and remember afterward, ever connecting it with some exquisite picture, or, if you happen to be in a poetical mood, a dainty bit of music. That face was very sweet in the coquettish red and white "kiss-me-quick" which used to shade it sunny mornings, when Daisy went to market--a very beautiful face when she looked up earnestly--a very holy face when she sat thoughtfully in her room at twilight. Her hair was dark chestnut, and she wore it in one heavy braid over her forehead. Her eyes were so gentle and saucy by turns that I could never tell whether they were gray or hazel; but her smile was frank, her laugh musical, and her whole presence so purely womanly, that one could not but be better for knowing her. Yet Daisy was not faultless. She had a wild little will of her own--none the worse for that, however. She could put her foot down--and a sweet little foot it was!--a temptation of a foot, cased in a tight boot--high in the instep, and arched like the proud neck of an Arabian mare, or the eye-brows of a Georgian girl. And then the heel of said boot!--But I daren't trust myself further. Daisy stood looking at Mortimer with her fond, thoughtful eyes. Soon she grew tired of this, and, placing a stool by his chair, sat down and commenced sewing. From time to time she looked up from her work and smiled quietly. "How he sleeps!" said Daisy, with a low laugh. "Will he be cross if I disturb him?"--and she laughed again. "I wonder," she said, at length, "if a tiny song would awaken him?" So she sang in a gentle voice those touching lines of Barry Cornwall, commencing with-- "Touch us gently, Father Time! As we glide adown the stream." She sang them bewitchingly. The music must have stolen into Mortimer's dream, for he slept a quieter sleep than before. Miss Daisy did not like that, and pouted quite prettily, and shook her finger at him. "O, how tiresome you are!" she said. Then she sewed for ten minutes quite steadily. "I guess I'll arrange your books, Rip Van Winkle! and when you wake up, a half century hence, you won't know them, they'll be in such good order!" And facetious Miss Daisy broke out in such a wild, merry laugh, that an early robin, perched on a tree beside the window, ceased chirping, and listened to her. Her fingers grew very busy with Mortimer's books. Having dusted them carefully, she commenced to place them in an old black-walnut book-case, which must have had an antique look fifty years ago. And Daisy went on laughing and talking to herself in a most comical manner. "Here, Mr. Theocritus!" she cried, taking up that venerable poet, and placing him upside down, "I'll just set you on your head for absorbing all that stupid boy's attention one live-long evening, when I wanted to chat with him." An author is supposed to know everything about his characters; but I cannot tell why Daisy placed Mortimer's poet in such an uncomfortable position, unless she thought that the blood might run into the head of Mr. Theocritus, and cause him to be taken off with a brain fever! "And you, Mr. Byron," Daisy co............