oot if necessary; but if the little spirit was willing, the flesh was
weak. The comfort of seeing her nurse again was too much for
Daisy--the knowledge that those were the very arms which had carried
her as a baby, and soothed her and tended her as a little child, was
quite too cheering to be resisted. Daisy made a valiant effort to say
"No," but instead, her lips formed a faint "Yes, Hannah, take me to
your home," and then Hannah, who was a strongly-built woman, lifted
the slight little girl in her arms, and carried her across the fields
to her tiny cottage at Teckford. All the time, while she was being
carried in those kind arms, Daisy kept repeating to herself, "I'll
have some bread and milk, for I am a little hungry, and I'll rest for
perhaps an hour, and then I'll go away on foot with my dear Pink to
find Mrs. Ellsworthy."

But when the child and the woman reached the house in the village
Daisy was too faint and weary to take more than a spoonful or two of
bread and milk, and long before the night arrived she had forgotten
that she meant to undertake any journey, and lay with burning cheeks
and bright, feverish eyes on Hannah's bed in her little home.

CHAPTER XLIV.

TOO MUCH FOR DOVE.

Mrs. Dredge's remarks had by no means been lost on Noel. When he left
Miss Egerton's house he consulted his watch, and found that he had
still an hour to spare before he need try to catch his train. He
thought for a moment or two, recalled certain expressions on Daisy's
face, certain words which dropped from her lips, and, above all, a
look which had filled her pretty eyes on the one and only occasion
when they had met Dove together.

Noel began to feel more and more certain that this man, to whom he had
taken a great dislike, had something to say to all the child's misery.
Noel knew, however, that suspicion in such a case would be of little
avail--he must have certainty, and certainty could only be his by
cautious and wary movements.

Again he consulted his watch, and now he determined on a bold course.
He remembered that the girls had once told him that Dove was a painter
by trade, but that he seldom or never had anything to do. Noel was
extremely fastidious, and, if possible, almost over-refined in the
arrangements of his own home. He made his little plan with a sigh, but
he would have done more than this for the sake of pretty little Daisy.

Walking quickly, he soon found himself at the Doves' address in Eden
St