to die quickly and never risk the sight
of her. 'Tain't no ways possible, Angel! It's a wildness of your dear
head. Oh, do for mercy sake, kiss me once more and be letting me go!"

"Not for a minute!" cried the Angel. "Not for a minute, if those are
all the reasons you have. It's you who are wild in your head, but I can
understand just how it happened. Being shut in that Home most of your
life, and seeing children every day whose parents did neglect and desert
them, makes you sure yours did the same; and yet there are so many other
things that could have happened so much more easily than that. There are
thousands of young couples who come to this country and start a family
with none of their relatives here. Chicago is a big, wicked city, and
grown people could disappear in many ways, and who would there ever be
to find to whom their little children belonged? The minute my father
told me how you felt, I began to study this thing over, and I've made up
my mind you are dead wrong. I meant to ask my father or the Bird Woman
to talk to you before you went away to school, but as matters are right
now I guess I'll just do it myself. It's all so plain to me. Oh, if I
could only make you see!"

She buried her face in the pillow and presently lifted it, transfigured.

"Now I have it!" she cried. "Oh, dear heart! I can make it so plain!
Freckles, can you imagine you see the old Limberlost trail? Well when
we followed it, you know there were places where ugly, prickly thistles
overgrew the path, and you went ahead with your club and bent them back
to keep them from stinging through my clothing. Other places there were
big shining pools where lovely, snow-white lilies grew, and you waded
in and gathered them for me. Oh dear heart, don't you see? It's this!
Everywhere the wind carried that thistledown, other thistles sprang up
and grew prickles; and wherever those lily seeds sank to the mire, the
pure white of other lilies bloomed. But, Freckles, there was never
a place anywhere in the Limberlost, or in the whole world, where the
thistledown floated and sprang up and blossomed into white lilies!
Thistles grow from thistles, and lilies from other lilies. Dear
Freckles, think hard! You must see it! You are a lily, straight through.
You never, never could have drifted from the thistle-patch.

"Where did you find the courage to go into the Limberlost and face its
terrors? You inherited it from the blood of a brave father, dear heart.