That brought them past the little cottage between its two brick guardians, and Creepy caught sight of the conservatory window. In an instant he had started up with a sudden cry, his cheeks turned pale and then crimson, and he leaned past the side of the chaise until, for a second, the doctor thought he had lost him.
“Wait a bit, my man,” he said, laughing, as he caught Creepy’s arm; “they’re worth looking at, that is true enough; but I can’t quite consent that you should break your neck for the sake of a peep at them. Sit up now, like a sensible fellow, till I can roll up the curtain and then we will walk past once or twice and see what we can make of it all.”
The curtain was rolled up, and the black horse brought to a walk and then turned to pass the window again. This time Creepy’s heart did stand still! Geraniums, azaleas, roses, heliotropes, and jessamines; and almost loveliest of all, some one standing behind the flowers, her face as fair as any of them, and her golden hair bound back from her forehead like rippling sunlight.
She had caught sight of Creepy too, Nellie Halliday, and though she could not read the whole story on the quivering face and great shining eyes, her quick glance told her enough, and when the horse had been turned again and was passing once more for Creepy’s last look, she had broken off a handful of the rarest flowers, thrown up one of the sashes a little way, and stood holding them toward him with a smile.
Creepy turned one entreating look toward the doctor, and then felt the reins put into his hand; the doctor had sprung down and was taking them from her.
“Excuse me,” she was saying, “I thought the little fellow was an invalid, and that perhaps they might be a pleasure to him, but I’m afraid I am venturing too much,” and a blush like one of her own roses spread over her face as the doctor took them from her hand.
“Quite the contrary,” said the doctor; “my little patient is indebted to you for his first taste of one of God’s rarest gifts;” and with his hat still in his hand he was in the chaise again, and the flowers in Creepy’s grasp.
“Well, and what do you think of them?” he asked gently, after a few moments as Creepy still held them reverently, scarcely pressing his white fingers upon their stems, and turning them from side to side before his enraptured eyes.
He turned and looked in the doctor’s face. “I think,” he said, “the King must have made them for his princess.”