er a little more with that elbow on your knee,--you must
be very much in earnest."

"What am I doing?" said Alexander, breaking from his prescribed
attitude to turn round and face the company.

"You are making love to Priscilla; but the joke is, you have been
persuaded to do it for somebody else, when all the time you would like
to do it for yourself."

"I wouldn't be such a gumph as that!" muttered Alexander as he fell back
into position. "Who am I, to begin with?"

"A highly respectable old Puritan. The lady was surprised at him and he
came to his senses, but that is not in the picture. Now Daisy--take that
chair--a little nearer;--you are to have your hand on your spinning
wheel, you know; I have got a dear little old spinning wheel at home for
you, that was used by my grandmother. You must look at Alexander a
little severely, for he is doing what you did not expect of him, and you
think he ought to know better. That attitude is very good. But you must
look at him, Daisy! Don't let your eyes go down."

There was a decided disposition to laugh among the company looking on,
which might have been fatal to the Puritan picture had not Preston and
Mrs. Sandford energetically crushed it. Happily Daisy was too much
occupied with the difficulty of her own immediate situation to discover
how the bystanders were affected; she did not know what was the effect
of her pink little cheeks and very demure down-cast eyes. In fact Daisy
had gone to take her place in the picture with something scarcely less
than horror; only induced to do it, by her greater horror of making a
fuss and so shewing the feeling which she knew would be laughed at if
shewn. She shewed it now, poor child; how could she help it? she shewed
it by her unusually tinged cheeks and by her persistent down-looking
eyes. It was very difficult indeed to help it; for if she ventured to
look at Alexander she caught impertinent little winks,--most unlike John
Alden or any Puritan,--which he could execute with impunity because his
face was mostly turned from the audience; but which Daisy took in full.

"Lift your eyes, Daisy! your eyes! Priscilla was too much astonished not
to look at her lover. You may be even a little indignant, if you choose.
I am certain she was."

Poor Daisy--it was a piece of the fortitude that belonged to her--thus
urged, did raise her eyes and bent upon her winking coadjutor a look so
severe in its childish distaste and disapproval that there