had never made anything so
lovely and love-deserving. I loved you from that moment, Una.

* * * * *

This is your birthday. The world has been glad of you for
twenty years. It is fitting that there have been bird songs
and sunshine and blossom today, a great light and fragrance
over land and sea. This morning I went far afield to a long,
lonely valley lying to the west, girt round about with dim old
pines, where feet of men seldom tread, and there I searched
until I found some rare flowers meet to offer you. I sent them
to you with a little book, an old book. A new book, savouring
of the shop and marketplace, however beautiful it might be,
would not do for you. So I sent the book that was my mother's.
She read it and loved it--the faded rose-leaves she placed in
it are there still. At first, dear, I almost feared to send
it. Would you miss its meaning? Would you laugh a little at
the shabby volume with its pencil marks and its rose-leaves?
But I knew you would not; I knew you would understand.

* * * * *

Today I saw you with the child of your sister in your arms. I
felt as the old painters must have felt when they painted
their Madonnas. You bent over his shining golden head, and on
your face was the mother passion and tenderness that is God's
finishing touch to the beauty of womanhood. The next moment
you were laughing with him--two children playing together. But
I had looked upon you in that brief space. Oh, the pain and
joy of it!

* * * * *

It is so sweet, dear, to serve you a little, though it be only
in opening a door for you to pass through, or handing you a
book or a sheet of music! Love wishes to do so much for the
beloved! I can do so little for you, but that little is
sweet.

* * * * *

This evening I read to you the poem which you had asked me to
read. You sat before me with your brown head leaning on your
hands and your eyes cast down. I stole dear glances at you
between the lines. When I finished I put a red, red rose from
your garden between the pages and crushed the book close on
it. That poem will always be dear to me, stained with the
life-blood of a rose-like hour.

* *