“You have ‘almost forgotten’ it! Have you, indeed, sir?”
“These trifles will escape us.”
May loses all her smiles, and her head sinks.
I begin to laugh, taking an old porte-monnaie from my pocket. There is very little money in it, but a number of worn papers, my parole and others. I take one and open it. It contains a faded primrose.
“Look!” I say, with a smile, “it said ‘Come,’ once, and it brings me back again to the dearest girl in the world!”
A tear falls from the violet eyes upon the faded flower, but through the tears burst a smile!
They are curious, these earthly angels—are they not, my dear reader? They are romantic and sentimental to the last, and this old soldier admires them!
So, conversing of a thousand things, we return to the Oaks wandering like boy and girl through the “happy autumn fields.” May Surry flits through the old doorway and disappears.
As she goes the sun sinks behind the forest. But it will rise, as she will, to-morrow!
The smiling Colonel Beverly meets me on the threshold, with a note in his hand.