"
"What were you trying to teach her?"
"To read, mamma — and to do right."
"Have you ever done this before."
"Yes, mamma — a few times."
"Can it be that you have a taste for low society, Daisy?"
Mrs. Randolph had been asking questions calmly while going on
with her tetting-work: at this one she raised her eyes and
bent them full, with steady, cold inquiry, on Daisy's face.
Daisy looked a little troubled.
"No, mamma — I do not think I have."
"Is not this child very rude and ill-mannered?"
"Yes, ma'am, but —"
"Is she even a clean child?"
"Not _very_, mamma."
"You are changed, Daisy," said Mrs. Randolph, with a slight
but keen expression of disdain. The child felt it, yet felt it
not at all to the moving of her steadfastness.
"Mamma — it was only that I might teach her. She knows nothing
at all, almost."
"And does Daisy Randolph think such a child is a fit companion
for her?"
"Not a _companion_, mamma."
"What business have you with a child who is not a fit
companion for you?"
"Only, mamma, to try to be of some benefit to her."
"I shall be of some benefit to you, now. Since I cannot trust
you, Daisy — since your own delicacy and feeling of what is
right does not guide you in such matters, I shall lay my
commands on you for the future.
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