Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/291

 "O Julie! I should like to drive with you forever!"

Was it any wonder that they forgot the bonnet? That Julie ran up to her little room, her heart beating so hard that she could hardly breathe? That Dick's strong hand trembled as he drove Golddust home and "put him up"?

In the presence of such memories even the Spencer temper could not long rage, and by the time he reached the spot where they had discovered the wild roses, Dick's mind was sufficiently disengaged to receive a happy suggestion. He would fill the bonnet with roses!

In an instant he was out of the buggy, searching for the fairest buds and blossoms, with a heart as light as though it had never stormed. He smiled gleefully as he laid the flowers in their singular basket. It was "made to hold flowers," he said to himself, thinking, with a gleam of fancy, of the flower-like face he had often seen within it. Yes, the boy was too happy to be angry long.

Dick's courtship ought to have been a prosperous one, for he and Julie had loved one another long before they were conscious of it. Furthermore, she was the very maiden whom his parents would have had him choose; and even worldly circumstance, so prone to frown upon lovers, was all in their favor.

But there was an obstacle upon this flowery path which Dick scorned to evade—an obstacle