ces fell on me. They were peculiar; they flashed upon
me, or through me, as keen and clear as the flash of a sabre in the
sun; and out of eyes in which a sunlight of merriment or benignity was
even then glowing. Both glowed upon me just at this moment, so I did
not mind the keen investigation. Indeed, I never minded it. I learned
to know it as one of Mr. Thorold's peculiarities. Now, Dr. Sandford
had a good eye for reading people, but it never flashed, unless under
strong excitement. Mr. Thorold's were dancing and flashing and
sparkling with fifty things by turns; their fund of amusement and
power of observation were the first things that struck me, and they
attracted me too.

"Then he is your cousin?"

"Of course, he is my cousin."

I thought Mr. Thorold seemed a little bit grave and silent for a
moment; then he rose up, with that benign look of his eyes glowing all
over me, and told me there was the drum for parade. "Only the first
drum," he added; so I need not be in a hurry. Would I go home before
parade?

I thought I would. If Preston was pacing up and down the side of the
camp ground, I thought I did not want to see him nor to have him see
me, as he was there for what I called disgrace. Moreover, I had a
secret presentiment of a breezy discussion with him the next time
there was a chance.

And I was not disappointed. The next day in the afternoon he came to
see us. Mrs. Sandford and I were sitting on the piazza, where the heat
of an excessive sultry day was now relieved a little by a slender
breeze coming out of the north-west. It was very hot still. Preston
sat down and made conversation in an abstracted way for a little
while.

"We did not see you at the hop the other night, Mr. Gary," Mrs.
Sandford remarked.

"No. Were you there?" said Preston.

"Everybody was there--except you."

"And Daisy? Were _you_ there, Daisy?"

"Certainly," Mrs. Sandford responded. "Everybody else could have been
better missed."

"I did not know you went there," said Preston, in something so like a
growl that Mrs. Sandford lifted her eyes to look at him.

"I do not wonder you are jealous," she said composedly.

"Jealous!" said Preston, with growl the second.

"You had more reason than you knew."

Preston grumbled something about the hops being "stupid places." I
kept carefully still.

"Daisy, did _you_ go?"

I looked up and said yes.

"Whom did you dance with?"

"With everybody," said Mrs. Sandford. "That is,