"Thank you. What a splendid old hall! I should like to spend a day looking round. But I had only the briefest while, and I was afraid I should not get here. So I must be satisfied with my glimpse. I shall hope that fate will send me this way again when I have more leisure. May I pay a visit here?"
"Oh, yes," returned Doris impulsively. "And I can never tell you how glad I am for this," touching the little packet caressingly to her cheek. "There isn't any word with enough thanks and gratitude in it."
"I am glad to have earned your gratitude. And now I must say farewell, for I know you are impatient to read your letter."
He stepped out on the porch and bowed with a kind of courtly grace. Doris realized then that he was a very handsome young man.
"Miss Doris,"—he paused halfway down the steps,—"I wonder if I might be so bold as to ask for yonder rose—the last on its parent stem?"
Thomas Moore had not yet immortalized "The Last Rose of Summer" and given it such pathetic possibilities.
"Oh, yes," she said. "That is a late-blooming rose—indeed, it blooms twice in the season." Only this morning she had gathered a bowl of rose leaves for Miss Recompense, and this one had opened since. She broke the stem and handed it to him. "It is a very little gift for all you have brought me," she added in a soft, heart-felt tone.
"Thank you. I shall cherish it sacredly."
Miss Recompense had hurried and donned a gingham gown and a fresh cap. She had come just in time to see the gift, and the manner in which the young man received it alarmed her. And when he had walked down to the street he turned and bowed and made a farewell gesture with his hand.
Doris had nothing to cut the cord around the packet, so she bit it with her pretty teeth and tore off the wrapper, coming up the steps. Then raising her eyes she sprang forward.