Preston, "but no, don't do
anything of that sort! If there is any sort of talking that has a chilly
effect, I wish you'd use it."

"I have read of such talk, but I don't think I know how to do it," said
Daisy. "I read the other day of somebody's being 'frozen with a look.'"

Preston went off into a fit of laughter and rolled himself over on the
grass, declaring that it was a splendid idea; then he sat up and asked
Daisy again what she wanted? Daisy cast a glance of her eye to see that
nobody was too near.

"Preston, you know you were going to teach me."

"O, ay!--about the Spartans."

"I want to learn everything," said Daisy. "I don't know much."

Preston looked at the pale, delicate child, whose doubtful health he
knew had kept her parents from letting her "know much"; and it was no
wonder that when he spoke again, he used a look and manner that were
caressing, and even tender.

"What do you want to know, Daisy?"

"I want to know everything," whispered Daisy; "but I don't know what to
begin at."

"No!" said Preston,--"'everything' seems as big as the world, and as
hard to get hold of."

"I want to know geography," said Daisy.

"Yes. Well--you shall. And you shall not study for it neither; which you
can't."

"Yes I can."

"No you can't. You are no more fit for it, little Daisy--but look here!
I wish you would be a red daisy."

"Then what else, Preston?"

"Nothing else. Geography is enough at once."

"O no, it isn't. Preston, I can't do the least little bit of a sum in
the world."

"Can't you? Well--I don't see that that is of any very great
consequence. What sums do _you_ want to do?"

"But I want to know how."

"Why?"

"Why Preston, you know I _ought_ to know how. It might be very useful,
and I ought to know."

"I hope it will never be of any use to you," said Preston; "but you can
learn the multiplication table if you like."

"Then will you shew it to me?"

"Yes; but what has put you in such a fever of study, little Daisy? It
excites me, this hot weather."

"Then won't you come in and shew me the multiplication table now,
Preston?"

In came Preston laughing, and found an arithmetic for Daisy; and Daisy,
not laughing, but with a steady seriousness, sat down on the verandah in
the last beams of the setting sun to learn that "twice two is four."

The same sort of sweet seriousness hung about all her movements this
week. To those who knew what it meant, there was something extremely
t