"Am I not?" says Sinclair, laughing a little and pulling himself together; for he had been leaning forward in his saddle wrapped in gloomy thoughts, until the child's abrupt remark roused him.
"Well, I am very sorry, Daisy. I'll try to be a little more lively in future. Shall I tell you a new story?"
Daisy looks at him, and then shakes her head.
"I like the old one best," she says, "about the princess, you know, and the wood-cutter. But I don't like the way it finishes up. You must make it end differently, Dr. John."
"Why, how did it end?--I almost forget now;" and he passes his hand over his eyes and strives to take his memory back to please his exacting little patient.
"Why, I believe _I_ know it all better than you!" remarks the child with some contempt. "Don't you remember? The princess had a lot of brothers and sisters; but, you know, she can only have been a princess in disguise, because she was a kind of Cinderella at home. Then the wood-cutter, just because he _was_ a wood-cutter, would not ask the princess to marry him, although he was _dreadfully_ fond of her; and _I_ think that was silly, you know, because it was quite likely that some fairy would have made him a prince when they were married, and then, you see, it would have been all right. You must make up a new ending," concludes Daisy authoritatively, "and make the wood-cutter ask the princess to marry him, and then they will both be happy ever after."
"Do you think they really would be?" asks Dr. John anxiously.
"Of _course_ they would--they always are!" replies Daisy, with firm conviction that the approved manner of winding up fairy tales in general cannot fail to be successful in this case also.
"You can arrange it all nicely when you are at home to-night," continues the child, "and mind you make it very long."
"To be sure," says the young man as he lifts his little charge off her pony and stands her by the gate. "Yards long, if you like, Daisy; and we will take an extra long ride so as to get it all in comfortably."
As he stops at the Rosery stables to leave Puck, the old gentlemen at work in the garden catch sight of their young favourite; and nothing will do but he must go in and take a glass of ale and some cake with them, the brothers being devoted to cake themselves, and thinking of necessity that every one else must be likewise. So Jack is taken in company with Puck to the nice cool stable, where he is entertained with a fresh drink and a few oats, while his master goes into the shady, old-fashioned dining-room with his old hosts. It soon becomes apparent that they have lured him in with some special object, for after a humming and hawing from both gentlemen in turn Mr. Edward at length says: