y and divining the lack of
sympathy one of his bent would probably find in the Allan home, for all
its indulgences.

She sat on a garden-bench and talked to him for a time, in her gentle,
understanding way, and then, not wishing to be a restraint upon the
boys, (after placing her husband's fine library at Edgar's disposal, and
urging him to come often to see Rob) withdrew into the house.

The motherless boy looked after her until she had disappeared, and
stared at the door that had closed upon her until he was recalled from
his reverie by the voice of his friend, suggesting that they now see the
rabbits. Edgar looked at the gentle creatures with unseeing eyes, though
he appeared to be listening to the prattle of his companion concerning
them. Suddenly, in a voice filled with enthusiasm and with a touch of
awe in it, he said:

"Rob, your mother is divinely beautiful--and _good_."

"Bully," was the nonchalant reply. "The best thing about her is the way
she takes up for a fellow when he brings in a bad report or gets into a
scrape. Fathers always think it's their sons' fault, you know."

Edgar flushed. "_Bully_--" he said to himself, with a shudder. The
adjective applied to her seemed blasphemy.

Aloud, he said, "She's an angel! She's the one I've always dreamed
about."

"You dreamed about mother when you had never seen her?" questioned the
astonished Rob. "What did you dream?"

"Nothing, in the way you mean. I meant she is like my idea of a perfect
woman. The kind of woman a man could always be good for, or would gladly
die to serve."

"Well, I'm not smart enough to think out things like that, Eddie, but
Mother certainly is all right. What you say about her sounds nice, and
she'd understand it, too. I just bet that you and mother'll be the best
sort of cronies when you know each other better. She likes all those
queer old books you think so fine, and she knows whole pages of poetry
by heart. When you and she get together it will be like two books
talking out loud to each other. I won't be able to join in much, but it
will be as good as a play to listen."

The young poet bent his steps homeward with but one thought, one hope in
his heart, and that a consuming one: to look again upon the lovely face,
to hear again the voice that had enthralled him, had taken his heart by
storm and filled it with a veritable _grande passion_--the rapturous
devotion of the virgin heart of an ardent and romantic youth. First
love-