“When somebody asks me, sir—she said,” laughed the young girl.
“Who is somebody?”
“I do not know,” answered Mamie with an infinitesimal sigh. “People have asked me, you know,” she added with another laugh, “any number of them.”
“But not the particular somebody who haunts your dreams?” asked George.
“He has not even begun to haunt me yet. You do, though. I dreamed of you the other night.”
“You? How odd! What did you dream about me?”
“Such a funny dream!” said Mamie, leaning forward and smelling the roses beside her. It struck George as strange that the colour from the dark red petals should be thrown up into her face by the rays of the sun, though he knew something of the laws of incidence and reflection.
“I dreamed,” continued Mamie, still holding the roses, “that I was very angry with you. Then I took all the things you ever gave me, the picture-books, and the broken doll, and the old racquet and the clock—by the by, it goes beautifully—and I threw them all out of my window into the street. And, of course, you were passing just at that moment, and you brought them all into the house in a basket, nicely done up in pink paper, and handed them back to me with that horrid smile you have when you are going to say something perfectly hateful.”
“And then, what happened?” inquired George, who was amused in spite of himself.
“Oh, nothing. I suppose I woke just then. I laughed over it the next morning.”