Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/103

Rh beautiful name. Do you know what it means?"

Kirk did not.

"It means happiness. Is it so?"

"Yes," said Kirk; "Ken and I couldn't be happy without her. She is happiness."

"Kenneth is your brother?"

"Kenelm. Does that mean something?"

The old gentleman plucked May-ﬂowers for a moment. "It means, if I remember rightly, 'a defender of his kindred." It is a good Anglo-Saxon name."

"What does my name mean?" Kirk asked.

The Maestro laughed. "Yours is not a given name," he said. "It has no meaning. But—you mean much to me."

He caught Kirk suddenly in a breathless embrace, from which he released him almost at once, with an apology.

"Let us make the wreath," he said. "See, I'll show you how."

He bound the ﬁrst strands, and then guided Kirk's hands in the next steps, till the child was fashioning the wreath alone.