eful parabolic curve and
fell harmlessly, like her courage, at his feet.

"What has become of the princess?"

"You ought rather to ask after the prince!" said Mr. Linden, picking up
the Sanguinaria with great devotion. "Is this the Star of the Order of
Merit?"

"I am not Queen Flora. I don't know."

"As what then was it bestowed?"

"It might be Mignonette's shield, which she used as a weapon because
she hadn't any other! Endy, look at those green Maple flowers! You can
reach them."

He gathered some of the hanging clusters, and then came and sat down
where she was at work and began to put them into her basket, arranging
and dressing the other flowers the while dextrously.

"Do you know, my little Sunbeam," he said, "that your namesakes are
retreating?"

"I know it, Endy," she said hastening her last gatherings--"and I am
ready."

They began their homeward way to the boat, wandering a little still,
for flowers, and stopping to pick them, so that the sun was quite low
before Kildeer river was reached. There Mr. Linden stood a moment
looking about.

"Do you see the place where we sat, Faith?" he said,--"over on the
other bank?"

She looked, and looked at him and smiled--very different from her look
then! A glance comprehensive and satisfactory enough without words, so
without any more words they went on their way along the shore of the
river. As they neared their boat, the rays of the setting sun were
darted into Kildeer river and gilded the embayed little vessel and all
the surrounding shores. Rocks and trees and bits of land glowed or
glistened in splendour wherever a point or a spray could catch the sun;
the water in both rivers shone with a long strip of gold. They had had
nothing so brilliant all day.

In the full glow and brightness Faith sat down in the boat with her
flowers near her, and Mr. Linden loosened the sail. How pretty the bank
looked as they were leaving it! the ashes of their fire on the rock,
and the places where they had sat or wandered, and talked--such happy
words!

"I shall always love Kildeer river," said Faith with little long
breath, "because I read my letter here."

"And so shall I," said Mr. Linden,--"but my love for it dates back to
the first piece of reading I ever did in its company." He looked back
for a minute or two--at the one shore and the other--the sunlight, the
trees, the flowery hillside, and it was well then that his face was not
seen by Faith--there fell on it