Peter looked at her speculatively.
“And would a man be telling his heart’s best secret to a kid like you?” he asked.
“Now, I call that downright mean,” said Linda. “Haven’t you noticed that my braids are up? Don’t you see a maturity and a dignity and a general matronliness apparent all over me to-day?”
“Matronliness” was too much for Peter. You could have heard his laugh far down the blue valley.
“That’s good!” he cried.
“It is,” agreed Linda. “It means that my braids are up to stay, so hereafter I’m a real woman.”
She lingered over the word an instant, glancing whimsically at Peter, a trace of a smile on her lips, then she made her way down a slant declivity and presently returned with an entire flower plant, new to Peter and of unusual beauty.
“And because I am a woman I shall set my seal upon you,” she said.
In the buttonhole of his light linen coat she placed a flower of satin face of purest gold, the five petals rounded, but sharply tipped, a heavy mass of silk stamens, pollen dusted in the heart. She pushed back the left side of his coat and taking one of the rough, hairy leaves of the plant she located it over Peter’s heart, her slim, deft fingers patting down the leaf and flattening it out until it lay pasted smooth and tight. As she worked, she smiled at him challengingly. Peter knew he was experiencing a ceremony of some kind, the significance of which he must learn. It was the first time Linda had voluntarily touched him. He breathed lightly and held steady, lest he startle her.
“Lovely enough,” he said, “to have come from the hills of the stars. Don’t make me wait, Linda; help me to the interpretation.”