Holly yielded the glass and moved back, watching him sympathetically while he swallowed two spoonfuls of the medicine.
“Was it awfully bad?” she asked, as he passed the glass to her with a shudder.
Winthrop reflected. Then:
“Frankly, it was,” he replied. “But it’s a good deal like having your teeth filled; it’s almost worth it for the succeeding glow of courage and virtue and relief it brings. Put it out of sight, please, and let us talk of pleasant things.”
“What?” asked Holly, as she sat down once more on the bench.
“Well, let me see. Suppose, Miss Holly, you tell me how you came to have such a charming and unusual name.”
“My mother gave it to me,” answered Holly, softly. “She was very fond of holly.”
“I beg your pardon,” exclaimed Winthrop. “It was an impertinent question.”
“Oh, no. My mother only lived a little while after I was born—about five weeks. She died on New Year’s morning. On Christmas Day father picked a spray of holly from one of the bushes down by the road. It was quite full of red berries and so pretty that he took it in to my mother. Father said she took it in her hands and cried a little over it, and he was sorry he had brought it to her. They had laid me beside her in the bed and presently she placed the holly sprig over me and kissed me and looked at father. She couldn’t talk very much then. But father understood what she meant. ‘Holly?’ he asked, and mother smiled, and—and that was ‘how come.’” Holly, her hands clasped between her knees, looked gravely and tenderly away across the sunny garden. Winthrop kept silence for a moment. Then——