me, I will not ask the daisies anything ever, so the fiend will not enter
into them."

"Nor into you. Poor little Bebee!"

"Why, you pity me for that?"

"Yes. Because, if women never see the serpent's face, neither do they
ever scent the smell of the paradise roses; and it will be hard for you
to die without a single rose d'amour in your pretty breast, poor little
Bebee?"

"I do not understand. But you frighten me a little."

He rose and left his easel and threw himself at her feet on the grass; he
took the little wooden shoes in his hands as reverently as he would have
taken the broidered shoes of a duchess; he looked up at her with tender,
smiling eyes.

"Poor little Bebee!" he said again. "Did I frighten you indeed? Nay, that
was very base of me. We will not spoil our summer holiday. There is no
such thing as a fiend, my dear. There are only men--such as I am. Say the
daisy spell over for me, Bebee. See if I do not love you a little, just
as you love your flowers."

She smiled, and the happy laughter came again over her face.

"Oh, I am sure you care for me a little," she said, softly, "or you would
not be so good and get me books and give me pleasure; and I do not want
the daisies to tell me that, because you say it yourself, which is
better."

"Much better." he answered her dreamily, and lay there in the grass,
holding the little wooden shoes in his hands.

He was not in love with her. He was in no haste. He preferred to play
with her softly, slowly, as one separates the leaves of a rose, to see
the deep rose of its heart.

Her own ignorance of what she felt had a charm for him. He liked to lift
the veil from her eyes by gentle degrees, watching each new pulse-beat,
each fresh instinct tremble into life.

It was an old, old story to him; he knew each chapter and verse to
weariness, though there still was no other story that he still read as
often. But to her it was so new.

To him it was a long beaten track; he knew every turn of it; he
recognized every wayside blossom; he had passed over a thousand times
each tremulous bridge; he knew so well beforehand where each shadow would
fall, and where each fresh bud would blossom, and where each harvest
would be reaped.

But to her it was so new.

She followed him as a blind child a man that guides her through a garden
and reads her a wonder tale.

He was good to her, that was all she knew. When he touched her ever so
lightly she felt a happiness so