e," he said.

"What?" said Daisy, looking up suddenly.

"Why you wanted to know about soldiers--don't you remember your
promise?"

The child's face all changed; her busy, eager, animated look, became on
the instant thoughtful and still. Yet changed, as the Captain saw with
some curiosity, not to lesser but to greater intentness.

"Well, Daisy?"

"Capt. Drummond, if I tell you, I do not wish it talked about."

"Certainly not!" he said suppressing a smile, and watched her while she
got down from her chair and looked about among the bookshelves.

"Will you please put this on the table for me?" she said--"I can't lift
it."

"A Bible!" said the Captain to himself. "This is growing serious." But
he carried the great quarto silently and placed it on the table. It was
a very large volume, full of magnificent engravings, which were the sole
cause and explanation of its finding a place in Mr. Randolph's library.
He put it on the table and watched Daisy curiously, who disregarding all
the pictures turned over the leaves hurriedly, till near the end of the
book; then stopped, put her little finger under some words, and turned
to him. The Captain looked and read--over the little finger--

"Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."

It gave the Captain a very odd feeling. He stopped and read it two or
three times over.

"But Daisy!"--he said.

"What, Capt. Drummond?"

"What has this to do with what we were talking about?"

"Would you please shut this up and put it away, first?"

The Captain obeyed, and as he turned from the bookshelves Daisy took his
hand again, and drew him, child-fashion, out of the house and through
the shrubbery. He let her alone till she had brought him to a shady
spot, where under the thick growth of magnificent trees a rustic seat
stood, in full view of the distant mountains and the river.

"Where is my answer, Daisy?" he said, as she let go his hand and seated
herself.

"What was your question, Capt. Drummond?"

"Now you are playing hide and seek with me. What have those words you
shewed me,--what have they to do with our yesterday's conversation?"

"I would like to know," said Daisy slowly, "what it means, to be a good
soldier?"

"Why?"

"I think I have told you," she said.

She said it with the most unmoved simplicity. The Captain could not
imagine what made him feel uncomfortable. He whistled.

"Daisy, you are incomprehensible!" he exclaimed, and catc