but
with habitually thoughtful eyes and a wise little mouth. She did not
seem to see the sunlight which poured all over her, and lit up a wide,
deep hall, floored with marble, and opening at the other end on trees
and flowers, which shewed the sunlight busy there too. The child
lingered wistfully. Then crossed the hall, and went into a matted,
breezy, elegant room, where a lady lay luxuriously on a couch, playing
with a book and a leaf-cutter. She could not be _busy_ with anything in
that attitude. Nearly all that was to be seen was a flow of lavender
silk flounces, a rich slipper at rest on a cushion, and a dainty little
cap with roses on a head too much at ease to rest. By the side of the
lavender silk stood the little white dress, still and preoccupied as
before--a few minutes without any notice.

"Do you want anything, Daisy?"

"Mamma, I want to know something."

"Well, what is it?"

"Mamma"--Daisy seemed to be engaged on a very puzzling question--"what
does it mean to be a Christian?"

"_What?_" said her mother, rousing herself up for the first time to look
at her.

"To be a Christian, mamma?"

"It means, to be baptized and go to church, and all that," said the
lady, turning back to her book.

"But mamma, that isn't all I mean."

"I don't know what you mean. What has put it into your head?"

"Something Mr. Dinwiddie said."

"What absurd nonsense! Who is Mr. Dinwiddie?"

"You know him. He lives at Mrs. Sandford's."

"And where did he talk to you?"

"In the little school in the woods. In his Sunday-school. Yesterday."

"Well, it's absurd nonsense, your going there. You have nothing to do
with such things. Mr. Randolph?--"

An inarticulate sound, testifying that he was attending, came from a
gentleman who had lounged in and was lounging through the room.

"I won't have Daisy go to that Sunday-school any more, down there in the
woods. Just tell her she is not to do it, will you? She is getting her
head full of the most absurd nonsense. Daisy is just the child to be
ruined by it."

"You hear, Daisy," said Mr. Randolph, indolently, as he lounged finally
out of the room by an open window; which, as did all the windows in the
room, served for a door also. By the door by which she had entered,
Daisy silently withdrew again, making no effort to change the resolution
of either of her parents. She knew it would be of no use; for
excessively indulgent as they both were in general, whenever they took
it