I was trying to pass the time by
going to sleep. I haven't seen anything, Mr. Dove."

"Let me look into your eyes, miss," said Dove; "open them wide, and
let me look well into them."

"Oh! you frighten me, Mr. Dove," said Daisy, beginning to cry. "I was
very lonely, and I'd have liked you to come up half an hour ago; but
you look so queer now, and you speak in such a rough voiced--what is
the matter? Perhaps you were bringing up some of those books for
Jasmine. Oh! I don't know why you should speak to me like that."

Dove's brow cleared; he began to believe that the child had really
been asleep, and had not seen the peculiar manner in which he had been
employing himself for the last ten minutes.

"Look here, miss," he said, "I don't mean to be rough to you, you
pretty little lady. Look here, what I was after was all kindness. I
only spoke rough as a bit of a joke. I has got some lollipops in my
pocket for a nice little maid; I wonder now who these yere lollipops
are for?"

"For me, perhaps?" said Daisy, who, although she could not have
swallowed a sweety to save her life at that moment, had sense enough
to know that her wisest plan was to propitiate Dove.

"You're fond of lollipops then, missie? you didn't think as 'twas
because poor Dove guessed that, that he travelled up all these weary
stairs? Kind of him, wasn't it? but you're real fond of lollipops,
ain't you, missy?"

"Some kinds," answered Daisy, who was really a most fastidious child,
and who shrank from the sticky-looking sweetmeats proffered to her by
Dove. "I like the very best chocolate creams; Primrose brings them to
me sometimes, but they are rather expensive. Oh! and I like sticky
sweets too," she continued seeing an ominous frown gathering on Dove's
brow. "I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Dove." Then making a great
effort, she put out her little white hand to take one of the sweeties.

But Dove drew back quickly.

"No, no," he said, "not till they're arned--by no means until they're
arned. You don't suppose as a poor man--a poor man with a large
family, and an only love of a wife--can afford to bring sweeties all
for nothing to rich little ladies like yourself. No, no, miss; you arn
them, and you shall have them."

"But I'd rather not, please," said Daisy, "I'm not _very_ hungry for
sweeties to-day on account of my cold, and I think, on the whole, you
had better keep them, Mr. Dove. Indeed, I don't know how to earn
them--Primrose and Jasmin