s beasts! Then the
desperation of this attempt to imagine something graceful, something
that would give him pleasure touched him; for he saw now that this was
a birthday decoration. From that it was only a second before he was
horrified with himself. Poor little Sylvia! What a brute he was! She had
plucked all that jessamine, hung out of her window and risked falling
to get hold of it; and she had woken up early and come down in her
dressing-gown just to do something that she thought he would like!
Horrible--what he had done! Now, when it was too late, he saw, only too
clearly, her startled white face and quivering lips, and the way she had
shrunk against the wall. How pretty she had looked in her dressing-gown
with her hair all about her, frightened like that! He would do anything
now to make up to her for having been such a perfect beast! The feeling,
always a little with him, that he must look after her--dating, no doubt,
from days when he had protected her from the bulls that were not there;
and the feeling of her being so sweet and decent to him always; and some
other feeling too--all these suddenly reached poignant climax. He simply
must make it up to her! He ran back into the house and stole upstairs.
Outside her room he listened with all his might, but could hear nothing;
then tapped softly with one nail, and, putting his mouth to the keyhole,
whispered: "Sylvia!" Again and again he whispered her name. He even
tried the handle, meaning to open the door an inch, but it was bolted.
Once he thought he heard a noise like sobbing, and this made him still
more wretched. At last he gave it up; she would not come, would not be
consoled. He deserved it, he knew, but it was very hard. And dreadfully
dispirited he went up to his room, took a bit of paper, and tried to
write:

"DEAREST SYLVIA,

"It was most awfully sweet of you to put your stars on my beasts. It
was just about the most sweet thing you could have done. I am an awful
brute, but, of course, if I had only known what you were doing, I
should have loved it. Do forgive me; I deserve it, I know--only it IS my
birthday.

"Your sorrowful

"MARK."

He took this down, slipped it under her door, tapped so that she might
notice it, and stole away. It relieved his mind a little, and he went
downstairs again.

Back in the greenhouse, sitting on a stool, he ruefully contemplated
those chapletted beasts. They consisted of a crow, a sheep, a turkey,
two doves, a