"She would like to see you."
"I suppose she would."
"Do you not incline to gratify her?"
"Did you tell her of - my being here, Dr. Sandford?"
"It was a very natural thing to do. If I had not, somebody
else would."
"I will go over to see her some time," I said. "I suppose it
is not too far for me to walk."
"It is not too far for you to ride," said the doctor. "I am
going that way now. Put on your hat and come. The air will be
good for you."
It was not pleasant to go. Nevertheless I yielded and went. I
knew how it would be. Every foot of the way pain. The doctor
let me alone. I was thankful for that. And he left me alone at
Juanita's cottage. He drove on, and I walked up the little
path where I had first gone for a drink of water almost eleven
years ago. Yet eleven years, from ten to twenty-one, is not so
much, in most cases, I thought. In mine, it was a whole life-
time, and the end of a life-time. So it seemed.
The interview with my old nurse was not satisfactory. Not to
me, and I think not to her. I did not seem to her quite the
same Daisy Randolph she had known; indeed I was not the same.
Juanita had a little awe of me; and I could not be unreserved
and remove the awe. I could not tell her my heart's history;
and without telling it, in part, I could not but keep at a
distance from my old friend. Time might bring something out of
our intercourse; but I felt that this first sight of her had
done me no good. So Dr. Sandford found that I felt; for he
took pains to know.
Juanita was but little changed. The eleven years had just
touched her. She was more wrinkled, hardly so firm in her
bearing, not quite so upright, as her beautiful presence used
to be. There was no deeper change. The brow was as peaceful
and as noble as ever. I thought, speculating upon it, that she
must have seen storms, too, in her life-time. The clouds were
all cleared away, long since. Perhaps it will be so with me, I
thought, some day; by and by.
I thought Dr. Sandford would be discouraged in trying to do me
good; however, a day or two after this drive, I saw his horses
stopping again at our gate. My mother uttered an exclamation
of impatience.
"Does that man come to see you or me, Daisy?" she asked.
"Mamma, I think he is a kind friend to both of us," I said.
"I suppose every woman has a tenderness for a man that is
enamoured of her, if he is ever so great a fool," she
remarked.