"Did you doubt it, papa?" I asked, with a smile.
"Then why do you say that as soon as I make my appearance!"
"I can hardly tell - the consciousness forced itself upon me. You are looking at life with a microscope, - as of old."
"To pick up invisible duties and find out indiscernible dangers -"
"When one is as old as I am," I said, "there is no need of a microscope to find out either dangers or duties."
"Ha!" said my father, folding me in his arms - "what dangers have you discovered, Daisy?"
"I believe they are everywhere, papa," I said, kissing him.
"Not here," he said, fondly; "there shall be none here for you."
"Mr. Randolph," said mamma, laughing, "if Daisy is to be meat and drink as well as scenery to you, we may as well dispense with the usual formalities; but I hope you will condescend to look at dinner as usual."
That first dinner at home! how strange and sweet it was. So sweet, that I could scarcely hear the note of the little warning bell down in the bottom of my heart. But mamma had struck it up stairs, and its vibrations would not quite be still. Yet there was a wonderful charm in my own home circle. The circle was made larger in the evening, by the coming in of two of Ransom's friends, who were also, I saw, friends of my father and mother. They were two Southern gentlemen, as I immediately knew them to be; MM. de Saussure and Marshall, Ransom's worthy compeers in the line of personal appearance and manner. De Saussure especially; but I liked Marshall best. This I found out afterward. The conversation that evening naturally went back to America which I had just come from, and to the time of my leaving it, and to the news then new there and but lately arrived here. I had to hear the whole Bull Run affair talked over from beginning to end and back again. It was not so pleasant a subject to me as to the rest of the company; which I suppose made the talk seem long.
"And you were there?" said Mr. de Saussure, suddenly appealing to me.
"No, but close by; held in durance in the capital, with liberators so near. It seems to me very stupid of Beauregard not to have gone in and set you free."
"There will be no freedom in the country, properly speaking, until that Northern usurper is tossed out of the place he occupies."