"

Margaret came to Pauline's room to say good night, sat with her while
she undressed, and tucked her up so lovingly that Pauline was more than
ever delighted to be back at home.

"Oh, Margaret, how sweet you are to me! Why? Is it because you really do
miss me when I go away?"

"Partly," said Margaret.

"Why are you smiling so wisely? Have you put something under my pillow?"
Pauline began to search.

"There's nothing under your pillow except all the thoughts I have
to-night for you."

Once more Margaret leaned over and kissed her, and Pauline faded into
sleep upon the happiness of being at home again.

Next day after lunch her mother and sisters went to pay a long-postponed
call upon a new family in the neighborhood, because Margaret insisted
they must take advantage of this glorious weather which would surely not
last very long.

Pauline spent the early afternoon with the Rector and Birdwood, writing
labels while they sowed a lot of new sweet-peas which had been sent to
the Rector for an opinion upon their merits. The clock was striking four
when Guy strolled into the garden. Somehow Pauline's labels were not so
carefully written after his arrival, and at last the Rector advised her
to take Hazlewood and show him _Anemone blanda_. They left the big
wall-garden and went across the lawn in front of the house to the second
wall-garden, where most of the Rector's favorites grew as it pleased
them best.

"Oh, they've all gone to bed," said Pauline.

Guy knelt down and opened the petals of one.

"They're exactly the color of your eyes," he said, looking up at her.

Pauline was conscious that the simple statement was fraught with a
significance far greater than anything which had so far happened in her
life. It was ringing in her ears like a bugle-call that sounded some
far-flung advance, and involuntarily she drew back and began to talk
nonsense breathlessly, while Guy did not speak. Nor must she let him
speak, she told herself, for behind that simple comparison how many
questions were trembling!

"Oh, I wonder if the others are back yet," she finally exclaimed, and
forthwith hurried from the garden towards the house. She wished she must
not look back over her shoulder to see Guy following her so gravely. Of
course, when they were standing in the hall, the others had not come
back; and the house in its silence was a hundred times more portentous
than the garden. And what would Guy be thinking of her for bri