Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/197

Rh paper peculiar to the Chinese. It was edged with red and ornamented with the decorative Chinese words.

"Litty plesent," said Sing Toy, handing it to her.

She raised the cover and the crêpe-tissue paper beneath it to discover a silk scarf. It was a wonderful specimen of Chinese handicraft, stiff with exquisite embroidery. "Oh, Sing Toy," she breathed, "it's wonderful."

"Yes, he velly fine," said Sing Toy, complacently, "you wear nun on head."

She threw the scarf over her hair.

"It's just the thing!" she cried. "Oh, thank you so much! It's a wonderful present.

"All light. You go. I velly busy," said Sing Toy. "Give me the box to put it in. What does this writing say?"

"Good-luck-long-life-'n-happiness," replied Sing Toy, as though it were one word. "Now you go!"

Daphne did not return to the Colonel. She slipped on the voluminous "carriage boots," threw her wrap about her shoulders and stepped out into the night. The air was very still and warm and quiet. Hardly an insect chirped. She turned down the dim tree aisles, and shortly found herself under the spreading branches of that great oak she called Dolman's House.

"Oh, Dolman," she breathed. "I'm so excited! To-night I am spreading my wings! Just like the little birds in your branches! Don't let me fall, Dolman. Make me happy!"

She looked up through the branches interlaced against the night sky; and the stars twinkled at her. As she looked they alternately grew larger and smaller. Then slowly from either side a gray mist seemed to close in. The stars grew dim, were blotted out, the twisted limbs of Dolman's House disappeared. Only the gray mist filled her eyes. And then, as slowly as it had closed in, it appeared to draw aside again. Daphne seemed to herself to be galloping up the beach, and the wind was in her hair, and the surf thundered, and the beach birds' cries were scattered before her like leaves. Close behind her she heard a horse's hoofbeats against the hard sand. They were coming nearer A voice called her name. There was an instant's rushing of