me and mine, it is really all about Timothy."

At first I deemed this to be uncommon nonsense, but as I considered I
saw that she was probably right again, and I gazed crestfallen at this
very clever woman.

"And so," said she, clapping her hands after the manner of David when he
makes a great discovery, "it proves to be my book after all."

"With all your pretty thoughts left out," I answered, properly humbled.

She spoke in a lower voice as if David must not hear. "I had only
one pretty thought for the book," she said, "I was to give it a happy
ending." She said this so timidly that I was about to melt to her when
she added with extraordinary boldness, "The little white bird was to
bear an olive-leaf in its mouth."

For a long time she talked to me earnestly of a grand scheme on which
she had set her heart, and ever and anon she tapped on me as if to get
admittance for her ideas. I listened respectfully, smiling at this young
thing for carrying it so motherly to me, and in the end I had to remind
her that I was forty-seven years of age.

"It is quite young for a man," she said brazenly.

"My father," said I, "was not forty-seven when he died, and I remember
thinking him an old man."

"But you don't think so now, do you?" she persisted, "you feel young
occasionally, don't you? Sometimes when you are playing with David in
the Gardens your youth comes swinging back, does it not?"

"Mary A----," I cried, grown afraid of the woman, "I forbid you to make
any more discoveries to-day."

But still she hugged her scheme, which I doubt not was what had brought
her to my rooms. "They are very dear women," said she coaxingly.

"I am sure," I said, "they must be dear women if they are friends of
yours."

"They are not exactly young," she faltered, "and perhaps they are not
very pretty--"

But she had been reading so recently about the darling of my youth that
she halted abashed at last, feeling, I apprehend, a stop in her mind
against proposing this thing to me, who, in those presumptuous days, had
thought to be content with nothing less than the loveliest lady in all
the land.

My thoughts had reverted also, and for the last time my eyes saw the
little hut through the pine wood haze. I met Mary there, and we came
back to the present together.

I have already told you, reader, that this conversation took place no
longer ago than yesterday.

"Very well, ma'am," I said, trying to put a brave face on it, "I will
c