"But I had watched you quite as much," said she, smiling; "I thought then of giving you a part of the clover. Edward always brings me huge bouquets of it every day; he knows so well how I love it."
"I heard you quote a little couplet of verse about it then," said I, looking away from her, that she might not see my face: "I was so near you I could not help hearing what you said."
"Oh, yes," said she,
"I wonder what the Clover thinks?
Intimate friend of Bob-o-links'--
"I do not know but that old clover-song is the real reason I love clover so. My mother taught it to me when I was a little child. It is all very quaint and sweet. Would you like to hear it?"
I felt myself color scarlet, but I replied,--
"Oh, yes, pray repeat it."
When she had repeated the verses she went on speaking, to my great relief, saving me from the necessity of saying anything.
"That was written a great many years ago, by an aunt of my mother's. My mother has a little manuscript book bound in red morocco, very faded and worn, which my grandmother kept on her bureau till she died, last year; and it has in it this little clover-song and several others, with Aunt Esther's diary while she was abroad. She died abroad; died in Jerusalem, and was buried there. There was something mysteriously sad in her life, I think: grandmother always sighed when she spoke of her, and used to read in the little red book every day. She was only her half-sister, but she said she loved her better than she did any sister of her own. Once I asked grandmamma to tell me about her, but she said, 'There is nothing to tell, child. She was never married: she died the autumn before your mother was born, and your mother looked very much like her when she was young. She is like her, too, in many ways,' and that was all grandmamma would ever say. But we always called her Aunt Esther, and know all her verses by heart, and the diary was fascinating. It seems strange to read such vivid written records of people you never saw; don't you think so?"
"Yes, it must, very," said I.