But it was long after sundown then.
"What has kept you ?" her mother asked, as Daisy came in to the tea-table.
"I didn't know how late it was, mamma." "Where have you been ?" "I was picking wintergreens with Nora Dinwiddie." "I hope you brought me some," said Mr.Randolph.
"O I did, papa; only I have not put them in order yet." "And where did you and Nora part ?" "Here, at the door, mamma." "Was she alone ?" "No, ma'am--Mr.Dinwiddie found us in the wood, and he took her home, and he brought me home first." Daisy was somewhat of a diplomatist.

Perhaps a little natural reserve of character might have been the beginning of it, but the habit had certainly grown from Daisy's experience of her mother's somewhat capricious and erratic views of her movements.

She could not but find out that things which to her father's sense were quite harmless and unobjectionable, were invested with an unknown and unexpected character of danger or disagreeableness in the eyes of her mother; neither could Daisy get hold of any chain of reasoning by which she might know beforehand what would meet her mother's favour and what would not.

The unconscious conclusion was, that reason had little to do with it; and the consequence, that without being untrue, Daisy had learned to be very uncommunicative about her thoughts, plans, or wishes.

To her mother, that is; she was more free with her father, though the habit, once a habit, asserted itself everywhere.