Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/58

46 I remember it as real as anything. I used to sit on the limb and he would talk to me."

"What would he say?" inquired the Colonel.

"It's hard to remember. But he was kind and he did not scold." She laughed merrily. "Wasn't it silly?"

"I don't know," said the Colonel. "How long ago did you stop talking to him?"

"I can't remember that." She hesitated shyly; then went on with more haste. "It's perfectly silly, but when I come here and sit even now to read or watch the birds and get day-dreaming or half asleep I sometimes hear him as plainly as can be, only faint and far off, not near as it used to be, as if his voice were inside me, or as if it were muffled. Then I come to with an awful start!"

"That is very interesting. What does he say?"

"I never can remember. It's just a waking dream."

"You never saw Dolman, you say?"

"No; I never did. But after I had sat quite still for some time staring out through the leaves I used to see queer things. The leaves would disappear and I would see a sort of revolving disk of gold and black. It was very bright and beautiful and went around very fast. My heart used to beat so with excitement, and I would try to keep on seeing it, but I never could hold it longer than a moment or so. When I saw it my eyes seemed sort of unfocussed; and they always would come back focussed again. It was lovely, and I used to think Dolman showed it to me."

"How long since you have seen that?"

"Oh, years! But I can shut my eyes and see it sometimes yet. Memory, I suppose. It is not so bright and it moves more slowly than it used to. I can sometimes almost make out the pattern on it." She hesitated, and crept closer to him: "Godfather, you mustn't laugh. I told you I couldn't remember anything Dolman told me. That isn't so. There is only one thing but I remember that very clearly. He said that when the disk stopped and I could make out the design on it, I would die."

The Colonel laughed. "What quaint ideas little children have, don't they, Puss?" he said in a matter-of-fact voice.