thren, old and young alike! It is always
_his_ love that forgets, and _her_ love that remembers. We were only two
children, and we were types of the man and the woman already.

Mary lost patience with me. Forgetting the terrible presence of her
grandmother, she jumped up, and snatched the concealed object out of her
handkerchief.

"There!" she cried, briskly, "_now_ do you know what it is?"

I remembered at last. The thing I had wished for in my boat, all those
months ago, was a new flag. And here was the flag, made for me in secret
by Mary's own hand! The ground was green silk, with a dove embroidered
on it in white, carrying in its beak the typical olive-branch, wrought
in gold thread. The work was the tremulous, uncertain work of a child's
fingers. But how faithfully my little darling had remembered my wish!
how patiently she had plied the needle over the traced lines of the
pattern! how industriously she had labored through the dreary winter
days! and all for my sake! What words could tell my pride, my gratitude,
my happiness?

I too forgot the presence of the Sibyl bending over her book. I took
the little workwoman in my arms, and kissed her till I was fairly out of
breath and could kiss no longer.

"Mary!" I burst out, in the first heat of my enthusiasm, "my father is
coming home to-day. I will speak to him to-night. And I will marry you
to-morrow!"

"Boy!" said the awful voice at the other end of the room. "Come here."

Dame Dermody's mystic book was closed; Dame Dermody's weird black eyes
were watching us in our corner. I approached her; and Mary followed me
timidly, by a footstep at a time.

The Sibyl took me by the hand, with a caressing gentleness which was new
in my experience of her.

"Do you prize that toy?" she inquired, looking at the flag. "Hide it!"
she cried, before I could answer. "Hide it--or it may be taken from
you!"

"Why should I hide it?" I asked. "I want to fly it at the mast of my
boat."

"You will never fly it at the mast of your boat!" With that answer she
took the flag from me and thrust it impatiently into the breast-pocket
of my jacket.

"Don't crumple it, grandmother!" said Mary, piteously.

I repeated my question:

"Why shall I never fly it at the mast of my boat?"

Dame Dermody laid her hand on the closed volume of Swedenborg lying in
her lap.

"Three times I have opened this book since the morning," she said.
"Three times the words of the prophet warn me that th