They had not the strenuous methods of to-day. If those old settlers of Pittsburg with their simple living could come back they would lose their senses at the luxury and striving for gain, the magnificence, the continual hurry and restlessness, the whirl of business undreamed of then. No one was striving to outshine his neighbor. House furnishing lasted through generations. Fashions in gowns and hats went on year after year, and it left time for many other things. Barbe Carrick found hours for lace-making; as was the custom of that time she was laying by in the old oaken chest articles and napery for the time when Daffodil would go to a home of her own. For then it was a great disappointment to the mother if a girl did not marry. In the old chair Gaspard de Ronville sat dreaming. He should have married long ago and had children and grandchildren. Would there have been one pretty, golden-haired girl among them with a sweet voice and such eyes as were sure to find the way to one's heart, such rosy, laughing lips, sweet for lovers to kiss when the time came? And then--oh, if it could be! That evening he laid his plan before the household. Might he take Daffodil for a few months' visit, and thereby return their cordial hospitality that had given him a most unexpected pleasure. She would be well taken care of, that he could assure them. And in event of her losing her natural protectors he as her trustee and guardian would be only too happy to take charge of her. He would have her best interests at heart always. And it might be well for her to see a little of the world. She might desire more education than the place could afford. They were all too much amazed to reply at once. "Pittsburg is good enough!" flung out grandad. "Her interests will be here. She'll marry here, she'll die and be buried here, and she'll know enough to get to heaven at the last without all the folderols of a great city, as those folks think it because they rung their bell when they cut loose from the mother country!" "Oh, we couldn't spare her," said the mother. "And, Dilly, you wouldn't want to go away among strangers." "Oh, no," returned the little girl, and she knew then she had two sides to her nature, and one was longing for the new and untried, and the other clung to what was familiar. There were tears in her eyes, but she could not have told which chord of her soul of all the many was touched. "I should just die without you!" protested Norah. "I couldn't love a colleen of my own better." Grandmere said but little. She saw there was an unquiet longing in the child's heart. She could not quite approve of trusting her to strangers, but she knew girls had come from the old world to Virginia and married men they had never seen before, and made good wives and mothers. Daffodil was too young to think of lovers, two years hence there might be danger.