For a moment the man stared dumbly. Then he threw back his head and laughed.
"Well, by George!" he muttered. "By George!" And he laughed again. Then: "And did your father teach you that, too?" he asked.
"Oh, no,—well, he taught me Latin, and so of course I could read it when I found it. But those 'special words I got off the sundial where my Lady of the Roses lives."
"Your—Lady of the Roses! And who is she?"
"Why, don't you know? You live right in sight of her house," cried David, pointing to the towers of Sunnycrest that showed above the trees. "It's over there she lives. I know those towers now, and I look for them wherever I go. I love them. It makes me see all over again the roses—and her."
"You mean—Miss Holbrook?"
The voice was so different from the genial tones that he had heard before that David looked up in surprise.
"Yes; she said that was her name," he answered, wondering at the indefinable change that had come to the man's face.
There was a moment's pause, then the man rose to his feet.
"How's your head? Does it ache?" he asked briskly.