"A sybil in white muslin!" I replied, laughing in his face; but remembering how disrespectful this was, I became suddenly grave again. He seemed anything but offended, and listened like one whose ear has caught a pleasant sound. "Do you know," he said, "I think this is the first time I ever heard you laugh outright. I remember your smile, but not your laugh. Oh, Daisy, are you sure you are the same? When I hear your voice, I think of my pale, sickly child. When I look, I am perplexed to see a tall, slender girl-- fair as a lily, fresh as a rose, demure as a young Quakeress, yet who looks kindly at me, like an old acquaintance. Speak!--say something that will throw a sort of bridge from the past to the present." "The only bridge I can give you is, that you have been two years away; that I am now always well, instead of being always ill; and that, as I began at the wrong end, by being dull as a child, I now mean to make up for the lost time by being as merry and as mad as I can." "How old are you?" "You have already asked me. Subtract ten years from your own age and you will know." "What is ten years?" "A mere trifle, like the walk awhile ago." "Then in another year you will be eighteen." "And you twenty-eight." "You are very tenacious of that ten years' difference," he said a little impatiently. "What is age--any one's age? I don't care about yours; all I care about," he said smiling, "is to find you so changed from what you were." "In one or two things I certainly am changed, as you will perceive, if you close your eyes and promise not to look." "Why so?" I would not tell him, so he complied, looking rather curious. I rose so softly that he could not hear me; the stream was neither wide nor deep; besides at this spot it suddenly grew narrower; I lightly sprang over; as I alighted safely I said-- "You may look now." He turned pale on seeing me on the other bank. "Daisy," he cried, "how could you do such a thing!" "Could you not do it, Cornelius? it really is not so difficult. Try." He refused, and said he was very angry. I laughed. "No, Cornelius," I said, "I see in your face you are only surprised. I mean to astonish you still more; you said you had never heard me laugh, I am at least certain that you never heard me sing. Pray open your ears, for I mean to sing you a song." I sat down in the high ferns, so high that they almost hid me, and I sang him the song of her who loved the lad at the sign of the Blue Bell. He heard me, his chin in his hand, his look on my face; seeing me so fearless, his own uneasiness had vanished. "Well!" I said. "Well," he replied, smiling, "it is as wild and sweet a ditty and as pleasant a voice as one need wish to hear on a summer noon. Sing me something else." "No, it is your turn now."