“We do not find the wonderful things, Daisy,” he remarked, throwing himself back upon the moss with his hands under his head.  His cap fell off; his blue eyes looked at her with a sort of contented laziness; never sleepily.  Daisy smiled at him.

“I do,” she said.

“You do!  What have you found!”

“I think everything is wonderful.”

“A profound truth,” said the doctor; “but you are very young to find it out.  Instance, Daisy.”

“But you want to go to sleep, sir.”

“How dare you say so?  No, I don’t.  I want to have a talk with you about something wonderful.”

Daisy thought he looked a little sleepy, for his eyelids drooped well over his eyes; nevertheless the eyes saw keenly enough the start of pleasure into hers.  And they had seen the pale, subdued look of the face that it had worn before.  Nevertheless, in spite of that start, Daisy remained as quiet as a mouse, looking at him.

“Don’t you think I can talk while I am enjoying myself in this fashion?” said the doctor.

“I think you can talk any way,” said Daisy; “but you look a great deal more like sleeping, sir.”

“None of that.  Go on, Daisy.  Only do not say anything about the sun, now that it has gone under a cloud.  Let us forget it for a little while.”

“What shall I take, then?”

“I don’t care.  Something green and refreshing.”

Daisy looked around her.  On every side she saw things that she had no doubt would be very interesting to talk about; she did not know which to choose.  There were the trees; the firs and hemlocks, and the oaks and maples, growing thick on every hand.  No doubt those beautiful structures had uses and characters of wonder; she had a great mind to ask the doctor to tell her about them.  But the great boulder beside which they were hid from view, divided her attention; it was very large, and rounded off on all sides, lying quietly on the ground; and Daisy was curious to know how it came to be so grown over with green things; mosses and ferns draped it all over; how could they grow on the bare rock?

“Well, Daisy?” said her friend, watching how Daisy’s countenance woke up from its subdued expression.

“Dr. Sandford, how could these things grow on the rock? these green things?”

“What green things?”

“Why, ever so many sorts.  Here is moss, a great deal of it, of different kinds; and there is beautiful brake at the top, like plumes of feathers.  How can they grow there?”

“Why not?”

“I thought everything wanted some earth to grow in.”

“Have they none?”

“I don’t know.  I thought not.  They must have very little indeed, Dr. Sandford.”

“Very little will do, I suppose.”

“But I do not see how any earth got there,” said Daisy.  “It was only a bare rock at first, of course.”

“At first,” repeated the doctor.  “Well, Daisy, I suppose it was no more.  But there is something else growing there, which you have not spoken of.”