"Are they? Not with me. Throw it away? I will show you that it shall not be thrown away."
He produced a little pocket-book and put the forget-me-nots into it, carefully pressing them down against a blank page.
"There," he said, as he made a note in pencil at the bottom of the page, "that will be always with me now."
"The poor forget-me-not!" said Margaret, smiling. "What a sad fate for it! To be torn from its home by the brook, taken away from the sun and the air, to languish out its life in a pocket-book."
"It should feel itself honored," Said Wyvis, "because it is dying for you."
As we have said, this strain of half-jesting compliment was not unfamiliar to Margaret; but she could hardly remain unconscious of the fact that a deeper note had crept into his voice during the last few words, and that his eyes glowed with a fire more ardent than she usually saw. She drew back a little, and looked down: she was not exactly displeased, but she was embarrassed. He noticed and understood the expression of her face; and changed his tone immediately.
"This is a pretty place," he said, indicating the park and the distant woods by a wave of his hand. "I always regret that I have been away from it so long."
"You have lived a great deal in France, I believe?"
"Yes, and in Italy, too. But I tired of foreign lands at last, and persuaded my mother to come home with me. I am glad that I came."
"You like the neighborhood?" said Margaret, in a tone of conventional interest.