ne is three; three times two is six." Miss
Pinshon helped me by closing the window. I thought she might have let so
much sweetness as that come into the multiplication table. However I
studied its threes and fours steadily for some time; then my attention
flagged. It was very uninteresting. I had never in all my life till then
been obliged to study what gave me no pleasure. My mind wandered, and
then my eyes wandered, to where the sunlight lay so golden under the live
oaks. The wreaths of grey moss stirred gently with the wind. I longed to
be out there. Miss Pinshon's voice startled me.

"Daisy, where are your thoughts?"

I hastily brought my eyes and wits home and answered, "Out upon the
lawn, ma'am."

"Do you find the multiplication table there?"

It was so needless to answer! I was mute. I would have come to the
rash conclusion that nature and mathematics had nothing to do with
each other.

"You must learn to command your attention," my governess went on. "You
must not let it wander. That is the first lesson you have to learn. I
shall give you mathematics till you have learnt it. You can do nothing
without attention."

I bent myself to the threes and fours again. But I was soon weary; my
mind escaped; and without turning my eyes off my book, it swept over
the distance between Magnolia and Melbourne, and sat down by Molly
Skelton to help her in getting her letters. It was done and I was
there. I could hear the hesitating utterances; I could see the dull
finger tracing its way along the lines. And then would come the
reading _to_ Molly, and the interested look of waiting attention, and
once in a while the strange softening of the poor hard face. From
there my mind went off to the people around me at Magnolia; were there
some to be taught here perhaps? and could I get at them? and was there
no other way--could it be there was no other way but by my weak little
voice--through which some of them were ever to learn about my dear
Saviour? I had got very far from mathematics, and my book fell. I
heard Miss Pinshon's voice.

"Daisy, come here."

I obeyed and came to the table, where my governess was installed in
the leather chair of my grandfather. She always used it.

"I should like to know what you are doing."

"I was thinking," I said.

"Did I give you thinking to do?"

"No, ma'am; not of that kind."

"What kind was it?"

"I was thinking, and remembering----"

"Pray what were you remembering?"

"Thin