My purchases were lying on the table, where they had been
disapproved; but I knew what to think of them now. I could
look at them very contentedly.
"How do they seem, Daisy?" said the doctor, stretching himself
on the cushions again, after asking my permission and pardon.
"Very well" — I said, smiling.
"You are satisfied?"
I said "yes."
"Daisy," said he, "you have conquered me to-day — I have
yielded — I own myself conquered; but, won't you enlighten me?
As a matter of favour?"
"About what, Dr. Sandford?"
"I don't understand you."
I remember looking at him and smiling. It was so curious a
thing, both that he should, in his philosophy, be puzzled by a
child like me, and that he should care about undoing the
puzzle.
"There!" said he, — "that is my old little Daisy of ten years
old. Daisy, I used to think she was an extremely dainty and
particular little person."
"Yes —" said I.
"Was that correct?"
"I don't know," said I. "I think it was."
"Then, Daisy, honestly, — I am asking as a philosopher, and
that means a lover of knowledge, you know, — did you choose
those articles to-day to please yourself?"
"In one way, I did," I answered.
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