Syl blushed. It was a sore point between her and Aunt Rachel that she so seldom sewed for herself. Aunt Rachel had old-fashioned notions, and believed in girls that made their own pretty things.

“Now, papa, you are not good-humored at all. I had better have asked you before dinner. You don’t even let me tell you what I want.”

Papa sobered his face into a look of respectful attention, and waited silently. But now Syl was not quite ready to speak.

“Don’t you think pomegranate is a pretty color, papa?”

“What is it like?”

“O, it’s the deepest, richest, brightest, humanest red you ever saw.”

“Why, I think it must be like your lips;” and he drew her to him, and kissed the bright young mouth with a lazy content.

“Perhaps it is like my lips; then, surely it will look well with them.”

“Where does this blossom of beauty grow?”