She raises herself up, puts her warm arms round his neck, and whispers—
"And now only you—only you to the end!"
Seeing the spasm of pain that crosses his dark face, she turns the sob into a laugh, and, taking a pink anemone from a glass on the table, begins to fray it childishly.
"'Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, gentleman, plowboy, apothecary—' Apothecary! Oh, you stupid, empty-headed flower—much you know about it! I wish I had a daisy—a big milky-petaled daisy; they always tell the truth—always."
"What did they tell you, love?"
"That I was to marry a gentleman, Tom—a gentleman. I consulted them every day nearly for three weeks before I married you, and they always gave me the same answer. If—if I were going to die—which I have not the slightest intention of doing—I should ask you, Tom, to plant only daisies on my grave."
"I think it would be more to the point," he answers lightly, "if I made the request of you, considering that I am almost twenty years your senior, and that I, not you, my dear, was the object of the pointed and persistent compliment."
"Very well then," she says, laughing; "I'll plant your grave all with big daisies, Tom Armstrong, gentleman, and I'll come and water them every evening—when you're dead."
"'Ah, if you did, my own, my sweet,
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My dust would hear you and beat
Had I lain for a century dead—
Would start and tremble under your feet,
And blossom in purple and red!'"