"Sit down, my lamb, my lamb!" were the first words I remember.
"Janet, shut the door, and tell anybody I am busy. Sit you
down here and rest. My lamb, ye're all shaken. Daisy, my pet,
where have you been?"
I sat down, and she did, but I leaned over to the arms that
still enfolded me and laid my head on her bosom. She was
silent now for a while. And I wished she would speak, but I
could not. Her arms pressed me close in the embrace that had
so comforted my childhood. She had taken off my bonnet and
kissed me and smoothed my hair; and that was all, for what
seemed a long while.
"What is it?" she said at last. "I know you're left, my
darling. I heard of your loss, while you were so far away from
home. One is gone from your world."
"He was happy - he is happy," I whispered.
"Let us praise the Lord for that!" she said in her broadest
Scotch accent, which only came out in moments of feeling.
"But he was nearly all my world, Miss Cardigan."
"Ay," she said. "We have but one father. And yet, no, my bairn.
Ye're not left desolate."
"I have been very near it."
"I am glad ye are come home."
"But I feel as if I had no home anywhere," I said with a burst
of tears which were a great mercy to me at the time. The
stricture upon my heart had like to have taken away my breath.
Miss Cardigan let me weep, saying sympathy with the tender
touch of her soft hand; no otherwise. And then I could lift
myself up and face life again.
"You have not forgotten your Lord, Daisy?" she said at length,
when she saw me quiet. I looked at her and smiled my answer,
though it must have been a sober smile.
"I see," she said; "you have not. But how was it, so far away,
my bairn? Weren't you tempted?"
"No, dear Miss Cardigan. What could tempt me?"
"The world, child. Its baits of pleasure and pride and power.
Did they never take hold on ye, Daisy?"
"My pleasure I had left at home," I said. "No, that is not
quite true. I had the pleasure of being with papa and mamma;
and of seeing a great deal of beauty, too. And I had pleasure
in Palestine, Miss Cardigan; but it was not the sort to tempt
me to forget anything good."
"And pride?" said the old lady.
"Why do you ask me?"
"You're so bonny, my darling. You ken you are; and other folks
know it."
"Pride? Yes, it tempted me a little," I said; "but it could
not for long, Miss Cardigan, when I remembered."