of sunlight lay along the lawn. The jolly little "what
d'-you-call-'ems" lifted gay purple faces to the sky.

She paused in the doorway, trying to realize how this quiet green
seclusion, the old-fashioned flower-borders, the spreading
mulberry-tree, the quaint white house, in the distance, with its green
shutters, must have looked to the Boy each day, as he came in. She
knew he had more eye for colour, and more knowledge of artistic effect,
than his casual acquaintances might suppose. It would not surprise her
some day to find, as one of the gems of the New Gallery, a reproduction
of her own garden, with a halo of jolly little "what-d'-you-call-'ems"
in the borders, and an indication of seats, deep in the shadow of the
mulberry-tree. She would not need to refer to the catalogue for the
artist's name. The Boy had had a painting in the Academy the year
before. She had chanced to see it. Noticing the name of her Little
Boy Blue of the Dovercourt sands in the catalogue, she had made her way
through the crowded rooms, and found his picture. It hung on the line.
She had been struck by its thoughtful beauty, and wealth of imaginative
skill. She had not forgotten that picture; and during all these days
she had been quietly waiting to hear the Boy say he had had a painting
in the Academy. Then she was going to tell him she had seen it, had
greatly admired it, and had noted with pleasure all the kind things
critics had said of it.

But, the subject of pictures not having come up, it had not occurred to
the Boy to mention it. The Boy never talked of what he had done,
_because_ he had done it. But were a subject mentioned upon which he
was keen, he would bound up, with shining eyes, and tell you all he
knew about it; all he had seen, heard, and done; all he was doing, and
all he hoped to do in the future, in connexion with that particular
thing. He would never have thought of informing you that he owned
three aeroplanes. But if the subject of aviation came up, and you said
to the Boy: "Do you know anything about it?" he would lean forward,
beaming at you, and say: "I should jolly well think I do!" and talk
aeroplanes to you for as long as you were willing to listen. This
trait of the Boy's, caused shallow-minded people to consider him
conceited. But the woman he loved knew how to distinguish between
keenness and conceit; between exuberant enthusiasm and egotistical
self-assertion; and the woman who loved him, smile