"Daisy! you are - what is the matter? You are not well - you are tired," - my guardian exclaimed anxiously, as he came back to my side with one of the Garibaldi flower bunches.
"I am well - you are mistaken, Dr. Sandford," I made myself say quietly.
"For which side are you so anxious?" he inquired. "You are paler than you ought to be, at this moment, with a smile on your lips. I got this for you - will you scorn it, or value it?"
"You would not waste it upon me, if you thought I would scorn it?" I said.
"I don't know. I am not infatuated about anybody. You may have the bouquet, Daisy. Will you have it?"
I did not want to have it! I was not amusing myself, as many and as Mrs. Sandford were doing; this was not an interesting little bit of greens to me, but a handful of pain. I held it, as one holds such handfuls; till the regiment, which had halted a little while at Willard's, was ordered forward and took the turning from Pennsylvania Avenue into the road leading to Virginia. With that, the whole regiment burst into song; I do not know what; a deep-voiced grave melody from a thousand throats, cheering their advance into the quarter of the enemy and of actual warfare. I forgot Dr. Sandford then, whose watchful eyes I generally remembered; I ceased to see the houses or the people before me; for my eyes grew dim with tears it was impossible to keep back; and I listened to nothing but that mellow, ominous, sweet, bitter, strain, till the sound faded away in the distance. Then I found that my cheeks were wet, and that Mrs. Sandford was wondering.
"This is what it is to have an ear for music!" she said. "There is positively no possession which does not bring some inconvenience on the possessor. My dear Daisy, you are in pain; those were not tears of joy; what did that chant say to your sensibilities? To mine it only sounded strength, and victory. If the arms of those - _what_ are they? - that regiment, - if their arms are only constituted proportionately to their throats, they must do good fighting. I should think nothing would stand before them. Daisy, they will certainly bear down all opposition. Are you afraid? Here is the Fourth, and Washington safe yet, for all the Southern bluster."