"No, no, child--I should much prefer to wait till we are home--that is to say, unless you are hungry," she said, as Daisy started the pony in the direction of the Toddburn House. "I'm not hungry, Mother. Billy said----" "Billy?" Lady Frances made the interruption in a tone of pleasant interrogation. "Will," Daisy substituted, with a little blush (Lady Frances, of course, could not know that she was a real wife now), "said that he thought you would rather lunch at home, so I had a little something just before I left." "Billy--Billy," Lady Frances, in mental enquiry, repeated the nickname, which had at first grated her a bit. Then her heart gave a great leap. She turned and looked closely at Daisy. One glance at the softened eyes, the delicate-hued and somewhat pale cheeks, the dreamy lips, the relaxed and restful lines of neck and bosom--and the old gentlewoman and mother, warmth of joy flooding all her arteries, reached out her hand, covered Daisy's with it, and held the young girl's fingers in a close and long caress. "My darling, my darling!" she murmured, with a thrilling tenderness, "oh, we _will_ have to take such care of you. Does William know?" Daisy answered with her frank and matter-of-fact affirmative nod. The drive home was a very quiet one. Daisy's new habit of forward-looking occupied her. Lady Frances Ware was wrapped in an ecstasy of that kind and depth which one does not want to break or to have broken by the paltry sound of the spoken word. CHAPTER XXIX. THE BUD. "That high-priced doctor from the city fired me out," said Dex Coleman, coming down to the barn where Jim Burns sat on the oat-box, behind the stall where the newly-arrived Toddburn livery horse munched hungrily at a fresh feed of hay, "and Bill's upstairs, so I couldn't ast him what it is. If it's a boy, the old lady will go crazy--that's one thing sure. Milt Hayes says he'll find out, as soon as he gets warmed up, and come down here and let us know." Milt Hayes was the Toddburn liveryman's son, who had brought out the doctor to the Ware farm over roads crisped and snowbound by February, and had been given license to remain by the stove in the bustling and anxious house, until he "got thawed out". "Ain't it queer, when you come to think of it, Dex?" remarked Jim Burns, as the other sat down beside him on the oat-box. "Ain't what queer, Jim?" said Dex Coleman. "Her," said Jim Burns, "goin' to school with us about five years ago, an' now--" "It's queer, all right," agreed Dex Coleman. "I wonder what she could have saw in him," pursued Jim Burns, following the groove of an old problem. "Oh, I dunno," Dex Coleman set his hat to the back of his head and spat down between his hands in a thoughtful way, "Bill ain't a bad head, Jim, when you get to know him. I never worked for a better boss, nor for higher wages. He pays me every cent I'm worth an' a little more." "Maybe so," said Jim Burns, "I ain't got nothin' against him personally. But--"