'"Yes," he said, more and more puzzled.
'She smiled, and then she laughed, and then she told him.
'"I believe I can solve the riddle," she said. "I once rode through the sea on your horse—in front of you.'"
'And then Jack remembered.'
And I understood!
'Oh, mamma!' I exclaimed, 'what a dear story. And you are the little girl, and dear papa is "Jack," and—and—it ended in your being married! How clever it was of him to remember your face again!'
'Don't you think it was still cleverer of me to remember his name?' said mamma. 'He always says so. But Ida, dearest, look how low the sun is getting. We must hurry home, or Geordie and the others will be getting tired of waiting for tea,' and she got up from her root-seat as she spoke, and we walked on quickly.
I kept on thinking of the story all the way. It was so pretty and yet so queer to think of my own papa and mamma as if they were people in a book, and to picture to myself that once upon a time, or ever, they were strangers to each other.
'Mamma must have been a dear little girl,' I thought to myself, as I glanced up at her; 'she is still so pretty and sweet;' and I felt that to me she always would seem so, even when her golden hair had grown silver, and her bright eyes dimmer, and her rounded cheeks thin and worn.