"She isn't anybody's," I said slowly, and with slow tears gathering in my heart.

"How do you mean?" said he, with again the quiver of a smile upon his lips.

"I mean," I said, struggling with my thoughts and myself, "I mean that nobody could have a right to her."

"Did not her parents belong to your father?"

"To my mother."

"Then she does."

"But, Dr. Sandford," I said, "nobody can belong to anybody—in that way."

"How do you make it out, Daisy?"

"Because nobody can give anybody a right to anybody else in that way."

"Does it not give your mother a right, that the mother of this