passed, while
he sat dreaming painfully of Mr. Parcher's porch; but in the daytime,
though William did not literally make hay while the sun shone, he at
least gathered a harvest somewhat resembling hay in general character.

Thus:

One afternoon, having locked his door to secure himself against
intrusion on the part of his mother or Jane, William seated himself at
his writing-table, and from a drawer therein took a small cardboard box,
which he uncovered, placing the contents in view before him upon the
table. (How meager, how chilling a word is "contents"!) In the box were:

A faded rose.

Several other faded roses, disintegrated into leaves.

Three withered "four-leaf clovers."

A white ribbon still faintly smelling of violets.

A small silver shoe-buckle.

A large pearl button.

A small pearl button.

A tortoise-shell hair-pin.

A cross-section from the heel of a small slipper.

A stringy remnant, probably once an improvised wreath of daisies.

Four or five withered dandelions.

Other dried vegetation, of a nature now indistinguishable.

William gazed reverently upon this junk of precious souvenirs; then
from the inner pocket of his coat he brought forth, warm and crumpled,
a lumpish cluster of red geranium blossoms, still aromatic and not quite
dead, though naturally, after three hours of such intimate confinement,
they wore an unmistakable look of suffering. With a tenderness which
his family had never observed in him since that piteous day in his fifth
year when he tried to mend his broken doll, William laid the geranium
blossoms in the cardboard box among the botanical and other relics.

His gentle eyes showed what the treasures meant to him, and yet it
was strange that they should have meant so much, because the source of
supply was not more than a quarter of a mile distant, and practically
inexhaustible. Miss Pratt had now been a visitor at the Parchers'
for something less than five weeks, but she had made no mention of
prospective departure, and there was every reason to suppose that she
meant to remain all summer. And as any foliage or anything whatever that
she touched, or that touched her, was thenceforth suitable for William's
museum, there appeared to be some probability that autumn might see it
so enlarged as to lack that rarity in the component items which is the
underlying value of most collections.

William's writing-table was beside an open window, through which came an
insiste