He looked up at the clear sky. Only a few white clouds floated in the deep, ineffable blue.
“It’s a heavenly day,” he said.
They were silent after that, walking between the hedgerows, until they came to a grassy slope that was left to go wild, because Virginia loved wild flowers. Here, in the spring, were pink anemones and blood-root, and now there were little yellow flowers on the green blades of grass.
They sat down together on a fallen tree, which had been left lying there for a seat. Daniel looked down at the little yellow stars in the grass.
“Aren’t they pretty things?” he said musingly. “At first I thought this was only common turf, but it’s full of yellow stars.”
Virginia, following his eyes, smiled.
“They call that star-grass, Dan.”
“Star-grass?” he repeated thoughtfully, “it’s a pretty name, Virginia. Do you know why I was looking at it? Those little stars are everywhere like tiny points of flame—and they are all around your feet, little flames of incense.”
“There’s a legend,” she replied, “that those little stars were fastened on the blades of grass so that the humble things of earth, which couldn’t look so high as heaven, could see the stars in the grass. Isn’t it a quaint idea?”
Daniel nodded, leaning his chin on the hands that clasped the top of his walking-stick, and looking at them, something grim and sad coming into his face.