But this illness of Lydia's, and Mrs. St. Clare's close attendance in her room, gave more liberty to Daisy. Scarcely an evening passed but she, unsuspected and unwatched, was pacing the shrubberies and the secluded parts of that wilderness of a garden with Frank. There, arm-in-arm, they walked, and talked together of the hopeful future, and the enchanted hours seemed to fly on golden wings. "Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing hands, Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might, Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight." Whatever of reality, of fruition, the future might bring, it could never be to them what this present time was, when they wandered together in the sweet moonlight, with the scent of the night-flowers around them, and the soft sighing wind, and the heart's romance. Never an evening but Daisy stole out to watch from the sheltered gate for the coming of her lover; scarcely an evening that Frank failed to come. When he did fail, it was through no fault of his. Daisy would linger and linger on, waiting and watching, even when all sensible hope of his coming must have died out; and when compelled to return indoors with a reluctant step, she would think fate cruel to her, and sigh heavily. "The time may come when we shall live with each other and be together always, in place of just this little evening walk up and down the paths--and oh, how I wish the time was come now!" poor Daisy would say to her own heart. One evening it was Daisy who failed to be at the trysting-place. Lydia was getting better, was able to sit up a little, morning and evening. The greater danger, feared for her, had been prevented: and under her own good constitution--for she had one, in spite of her grumblings and her imaginary ailments--and Dr. Raynor's successful treatment, she was recovering rapidly. This evening, lying back in an easy-chair, it had pleased her to order Daisy to read to her. Daisy complied willingly: she was ever more ready to help Lydia than Lydia was to accept her help; but when a long spell of reading had been got through, and the room was growing dim, Daisy, coming to the end of a chapter, closed the book. "What's that for?" asked Lydia, sharply, whose peevishness was coming back to her with her advance towards convalescence. "Read on, please." "It is growing dusk," said Daisy. "Dusk--for that large print!--nonsense," retorted Lydia. The book was a popular novel, and she felt interested in it. "I am tired, Lydia: you don't consider how long I have been reading," cried Daisy, fretting inwardly: for the twilight hour was her lover's signal for approach, and she knew he must be already waiting for her. "You have only been reading since dinner," debated Lydia: "not much more than an hour, I'm sure. Go on."