I stopped to
make the reckoning.
"Give me the course of your day, Daisy. And, by the by, when
does your day begin?"
"It begins at half past seven, Dr. Sandford."
"With breakfast?"
"No, sir. I have a recitation before breakfast."
"Please, of what?"
"Miss Pinshon always begins with mathematics."
"As a bitters. Do you find that it gives you an appetite?"
By this time I was very near bursting into tears. The familiar
voice and way, the old time they brought back, the contrasts
they forced together, the different days of Melbourne and of
my Southern home, the forms and voices of mamma and papa, —
they all came crowding and flitting before me. I was obliged
to delay my answer. I knew that Dr. Sandford looked at me;
then he went on in a very gentle way —
"Sweetbriar is sweet, — Daisy" — putting it to my nose. "I
should like to know, how long does mathematics last, before
you are allowed to have coffee?"
"Mathematics only lasts half an hour. But then I have an hour
of study in Mental Philosophy before breakfast.
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