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172 knife," Alan continued, not looking at her, "and built houses in them by twining the cut stalks in and out among those still standing. I'd wondered, you see, what you must have been like when you were a little girl, so, I suppose, when I was delirious, I saw you that way."

She had looked up at him a little apprehensively, afraid that he was going to say something more; but his look reassured her.

"Then that," she hazarded, "must have been how the hospital people learned our name. I'd wondered about that; they said you were unconscious first, and then delirious and when you spoke you said, among other names, mine—Connie and Sherrill."

He colored and glanced away. "I thought they might have told you that, so I wanted you to know. They say that in a dream, or in delirium, after your brain establishes the first absurdity—like your playing out among the sunflowers with me when we were little—everything else is consistent. I wouldn't call a little girl 'Miss Sherrill,' of course. Ever since I've known you, I couldn't help thinking a great deal about you; you're not like any one else I've ever known. But I didn't want you to think I thought of you—familiarly."

"I speak of you always as Alan to father," she said.

He was silent for a moment. "They lasted hardly for a day—those sunflower houses, Miss Sherrill," he said quietly. "They withered almost as soon as they were made. Castles in Kansas, one might say! No one could live in them."

Apprehensive again, she colored. He had recalled