"I had not forgotten you, Miss Meredith, though I seemed startled for the moment. Did you think I had?"
The dark eyes looked at him in smiling gratitude.
"I know that you remembered me kindly once, at least," she replied. "It was when you sent me the books. Oh, I could not tell you how much I enjoyed them, Mr. Valchester. You cannot imagine what happiness they gave me. I could never thank you enough for your kindness."
"If you remembered me kindly a few times it was quite sufficient," he said. "Did you—Lina?"
"Did I what?" said the girl, with a keen shiver of some indefinable emotion as the low name passed his lips.
"Think of me?" he answered, looking straight into her dark, uplifted eyes.
"Often and often," she responded, with frank gravity. "You see I had the beautiful books to recall you to my mind every day. Then one day when I was looking through the book you read in the orchard, I found——"
"What?" he asked, as she paused with a pleased smile on her scarlet lips.
"I found on one page a pressed four-leaved clover. I remembered that Violet had given you one that day, and I was so pleased," she said.
"Pleased—why?" asked Ronald Valchester.