company.
It was greatly admired, both from its oddness and from the beauty of its
carving.

"Daisy, I will buy this spoon of you," said her aunt.

Daisy thought not; but she said, "With what, aunt Gary?"

"With anything you please. Do you set a high value on it? What is it
worth?"

Daisy hesitated; and then she said, "I think it is worth my regard, aunt
Gary!"

She could not guess why there was a general little laugh round the table
at this speech.

"Daisy, you are an original," said Mrs. Gary. "May I ask, why this piece
of old Egypt deserves your regard?"

"I think anything does, aunt Gary, that is a gift," Daisy said, a little
shyly.

"If your first speech sounded forty years old, your second does not,"
said the lady.

"Arcadian again, both of them," Mr. Randolph remarked.

"You always take Daisy's part," said the lady briskly. But Mr. Randolph
let the assertion drop.

"Mamma," said Daisy, "what is an original?"

"Something your aunt says you are. Do you like some of this _biscuit_,
Daisy?"

"If you please, mamma. And mamma, what do you mean by a fanatic?"

"Something that I will not have you," said her mother, with knitting
brow again.

Daisy slowly eat her biscuit-glace and wondered. Wondered what it could
be that Mr. Dinwiddie was and that her mother was determined she should
not be.

Mr. Dinwiddie was a friend of poor people--was that what her mother
meant? He was a devoted, unflinching servant of Christ;--"so will I be,"
said Daisy to herself; "so I am now; for I have given the Lord Jesus all
I have got, and I don't want to take anything back. Is that what mamma
calls being a fanatic?"--Daisy's meditations were broken off; for a
general stir round the table made her look up.

The table was cleared, and the servants were bringing on the fruit; and
with the fruit they were setting on the table a beautiful old fashioned
silver epergne, that was never used but for great occasions. Generally
it was adorned with fruit and flowers; to-day it was empty, and the
attendants proceeded to arrange upon it very strange looking things;
packages in white paper, books, trinkets, what not; and in the middle of
all a little statuette of a Grecian nymph, which was a great favourite
of Daisy's. Daisy began to guess that the epergne had something to do
with her birthday. But the nymph?--perhaps she came there by her beauty
to dignify this use made of the stately old thing. However, she forgot
all about fanatic