Page:Daskam Bacon--Whom the gods destroy.djvu/234

 away. When he saw clearly again, he started slightly, for up the path, walking in the sunbeam came a boy. He smiled sweetly, cheerily at the old man, and sat down confidingly, close to the couch. "It is so warm in the sun!" he said.

The old man turned uneasily and looked at him. "Are you Arthur's son?" he asked doubtfully. "My eyes are so dim—I cannot always tell you apart, at first. Are you Arthur's son?"

"No," said the child.

"Are you" but then the boy looked full in his face and the old man could not take his eyes from that searching smile. And as he looked, there grew around his heart the sweet faint breath of lilac trees, though it was early autumn and not at all the spring. And deep in the child's eyes was so strange a soul—yet so familiar! As he looked yet deeper the lilac scent grew stronger and he dared not turn away his eyes, lest he should lose it. So he listened to the child, who spoke brightly yet gravely, with his head resting against the old man's knee.

"See!" he said, "the lilacs are all out! I took