her to her mother's arms before you let her go."
They turned off, and grandad, who had not had his fun out, went back.
"It was all splendid, Norry. I want you to show me how to dance and teach me some songs – some of those gay and pretty ones."
"Well, well! you are getting along. Daffodil Carrick, you'll break hearts some day;" and Norah laughed.
She had so much to tell them at home and she spoke of Ned Langdale, but she did not quite like to tell about the dancing, wondering if there had been anything wrong in it, and she did not want to have Norah blamed. She liked the gayety so much. It was rather grave at home, with all grown people. And her mother was not all hers now. Father was very fond of her. And she was coming to like him very much.
He was pleased that she had such a nice time. He wondered if it would not be well to send her to this school for small children that had lately been opened. But her mother objected decidedly.
Oh, how beautiful the summer was with its flowers, and then its fruits. One Sunday afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Langdale came up with their son Edward, and Daffodil was glad to see him again. He was a nice, well-behaved lad, and very deferential to great-grandfather. The two soldiers talked over their battles and the state of the country. The preliminaries of peace were under way, but the settlement seemed to drag along. France still stood our friend.
Daffodil took him out to see the squirrels that came at her call and inspected him with such curious, inquiring eyes that he laughed about it.
"You see they are not used to boys," she explained.
The quails were very much at their ease as well, and robins flew and fluttered. Judy never tried to catch them, though sometimes she hunted out in the woods.
"Ned Langdale is a nice boy," said Dilly's father. "I don't wonder they are proud of him. His heart is set on being a soldier."
"I'm glad he isn't my son if that is his bent," Barbe said. "And I hope we'll hear no more of war."
CHAPTER V
HOW THE WORLD WIDENED
The summer passed rapidly. Daffodil found many things to entertain her, but grandfather demanded much of her time. He took his morning walk with her hand in his, but he did not go as far as formerly. Then, on his return, he had a nap in his chair. He lost his appetite during the latter part of the season. In the afternoon he took a long nap. Daffodil read to him now, and he did not appear to notice her blunders.
"Father fails rapidly, I think," Mrs. Bradin said to her husband.
He shook his head with a slow, sympathetic movement.
"We shall miss him very much. And Dilly will feel it. I am sorry to have her know the mystery no child can understand."
"We won't go for a walk this morning, Dilly," he said one day in later August. "The air is very close. We will wait until evening."
"But you go to bed so early."
"Yes, I'm getting old," with his faint, sweet smile.
"But everybody says you must live to be a hundred. That's a whole century."
"Sometimes I feel as if it were two centuries since I began. But it has been a pleasant journey toward the last. I'm glad to have had you, Dilly."
"I'm glad, too," the child said with her bright smile.
"Now you may sing to me a little."
So she sang him to sleep. Then she went to wait on her grandmother. Her mother was sewing by the window in their sleeping-room.
"Go and look at grandfather," she said presently.
"He is still asleep. Mother, I wish you would show me that stitch I began yesterday."
So she sat down at her work.
Mrs. Bradin went to her father. His head had drooped a little forward. She placed her hand on his forehead, and drew a long quivering breath. The summons had come, peacefully, for him.
She was still standing there when her husband entered, and at a glance he knew what had happened.
"It is best so," he said.
Barbe was startled beyond measure. Latterly her thoughts had been revolving much about herself, and though she had remarked the slow alteration, she had put off the assumption of the great change. Somewhere in the winter – maybe spring, and here it was with the ripening of summer.
They carried him to his room and laid him tenderly on his bed. A long, well-used life it had been.
To Daffodil it was a profound mystery. No child could comprehend it. This was the journey grandfather had spoken of, that she had imagined going back to France.
"What is it, mother? How do people go to heaven?" she asked.
"Some day we will talk it all over, when you can understand better. We must all go sometime. And we shall see each other there."
"Then it isn't so bad as never seeing one again," and there was a great tremble in her voice.
"No, dear. And God knows about the best times. We must trust to that."
He looked so peaceful the day of the burial that Daffodil thought he must be simply asleep. She said good-by to him softly. There had been no tragedy about it, but a quiet, reverent passing away.
Still, they missed him very much. Barbe wanted to set away the chair that had been so much to him. She could not bear to see it empty.
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