even know
her name. She had been dressed in blue, too--a pale, dainty blue; but
that was of course; he had known she must wear it; and he was sure her
name must be Alice. When, later on, he discovered that it was, he felt
no surprise.

He carried some mayflowers up to the west gable and put them under the
picture. But the charm had gone out of the tribute; and looking at the
picture, he thought how scant was the justice it did her. Her face
was so much sweeter, her eyes so much softer, her hair so much more
lustrous. The soul of his love had gone from the room and from the
picture and from his dreams. When he tried to think of the Alice he
loved he saw, not the shadowy spirit occupant of the west gable, but the
young girl who had stood under the pine, beautiful with the beauty of
moonlight, of starshine on still water, of white, wind-swayed flowers
growing in silent, shadowy places. He did not then realize what this
meant: had he realized it he would have suffered bitterly; as it was
he felt only a vague discomfort--a curious sense of loss and gain
commingled.

He saw her again that afternoon on her way home. She did not pause by
the garden but walked swiftly past. Thereafter, every day for a week he
watched unseen to see her pass his home. Once a little child was with
her, clinging to her hand. No child had ever before had any part in the
shy man's dream life. But that night in the twilight the vision of
the rocking-chair was a girl in a blue print dress, with a little,
golden-haired shape at her knee--a shape that lisped and prattled and
called her "mother;" and both of them were his.

It was the next day that he failed for the first time to put flowers
in the west gable. Instead, he cut a loose handful of daffodils and,
looking furtively about him as if committing a crime, he laid them
across the footpath under the pine. She must pass that way; her feet
would crush them if she failed to see them. Then he slipped back into
his garden, half exultant, half repentant. From a safe retreat he saw
her pass by and stoop to lift his flowers. Thereafter he put some in the
same place every day.

When Alice Reade saw the flowers she knew at once who had put them
there, and divined that they were for her. She lifted them tenderly in
much surprise and pleasure. She had heard all about Jasper Dale and his
shyness; but before she had heard about him she had seen him in church
and liked him. She thought his face and his dark bl