once called Eugenia's besetting vanity the love of giving
pleasure; it was, perhaps, in reality, the pleasure of being loved. It
was not the fact that she might be beautiful that now warmed her so
gratefully, but the evidence that Nicholas was good enough to consider
her so.

"You have seen so few girls," she remarked reasonably enough.

"I may see many, but it won't alter my view of you."

"How can you tell?"

He shook his head impatiently.

"I shan't tell. I shall prove it."

"And when you have proved it where shall I be?--old and toothless?"

"May be--but still beautiful."

There was a glow in her face, but she did not reply. His eyes and the
last, long ray of sunshine were upon her. He was revoking from an old
October a dark-haired, clear-eyed girl amid the dahlias, and it seemed
to him that Eugenia had shot up in a season like one of the stately
flowers. As she stood in the grass-grown walk, her skirt half-filled
with blossoms, her white hands lifting the thin folds above her ruffled
petticoat, she appeared to be the vital apparition of the place--a
harbinger of the vivid sunlight and the dark shadows of the passing of
the year.

"See how many!" she exclaimed, holding her lapful towards him. "You may
take your choice--only not that last pink papa loves."

He plunged his hands amid the confusion of colours and drew out a yellow
chrysanthemum.

"I like this," he said simply.

She laughed. "But it doesn't suit your hair," she suggested.

He met her sally gravely.

"It is my favourite flower," he returned.

"Since when, pray?"

"Since--since a half-hour ago."

He stooped and picked up his knife from the grass.

"Are you going away?" he asked, "or shall you stay here always?"

"Always," she promptly returned. "I'm going to live here with this old
garden until I grow to be an ancient dame--and you may walk over on
autumn afternoons and I'll be sympathetic about your rheumatism. Isn't
that a picture that delights your soul?"

"No," he said bluntly; "I see a better one."

"Tell me."

"I can never tell you," he replied gravely--"not even when you are an
ancient dame and I rheumatic."

She was merry again.

"Then I fear it's wicked," she said, "and I'm amazed at you. But my
day-dreams are all common ones. I ask only the country and my home and
horses and cows and chickens--and a rheumatic friend. You see I must be
happy, I ask so little."

"And you argue that he who demands little gets it,"