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472 "Another time, perhaps. We will follow the others now."

"No, I will pick them this minute," he says; and while I stand a little apart he gathers me a great glorious bouquet of yellow, crimson, gold, and scarlet. Clearing the thorns from the stalks, he gives it to me and goes away, returning shortly with one snow-white, stainless rose that has no fleck or flaw to dim its absolute purity. "Will you wear this one?" he says; and I take it from his hand and fasten it with my brooch against my throat.

"They are very lovely," I say, looking down on my roses. "We will take them and show them to Dolly."

"Nell!" he says, "Nell! are you growing at last to care for that yellow-haired lover of yours?"

"Hush!" I say, holding up my hand and listening A smile breaks over my face as a certain sound that I know well enough by now is heard in the distance—a scutter of little hurrying feet, a naughty little laugh of mischievous glee and in another minute Wattie appears before us, his curls tumbled, his cheeks flushed, and the skirt of his frock full of daisies.

"Lallie! Lallie!" he calls out, and down we go on the grass side by side to make our daisy chain; not the first we have made together by any means. The nurse, seeing that he is with me, goes away. His father does not turn on his heel and go away as he did that first time he saw us together (shall I ever forget his face when he caught sight of us?) he stands looking down on us—on the rapt, intent face of the child, as he hands me daisy after daisy, on my busy hands as I thread them. As I look up from the son to the father, the extraordinary resemblance between the two faces strikes me with fresh surprise.

"You love him?" says Paul.

"Yes, I love him." Does he guess, I wonder, that I love this child above almost all things on earth?