they came upon a
child's toy, a little wooden horse, broken. He pointed it out to her,
half-smiling. "Some kiddy must have left that there."

"Of course," said she, "it's been a nursery. And, I say, Keith, I
think it must have _died_."

"How do you make that out?"

"It couldn't have been long here. Don't you see, the wall-paper's all
new." (He thought that was rather sharp of her, the practical Beaver!)
"And yet," she said continuing her train of induction; "it couldn't.
If it had, they'd never have left _that_ here."

Ah, that was not sharp; it was something better. There was, after all,
about his Beaver a certain poetry and tenderness.

She picked up the little wooden horse, and held it in her hands, and
adjusted its loosened mane, and mended its broken legs, fitting the
edges delicately with her clever fingers. And it seemed to him that as
she bent over the toy her face grew soft again. When she lifted her
head her eyes rested on him, but without seeing him. Never had Flossie
had so poignant a vision of Muriel Maud.

He looked at her with a new wonder in his heart. For the first time he
was made aware of the change that two years had worked in her. She had
grown, he thought, finer in growing firmer; her body in its maturity
was acquiring a strength and richness that had been wanting in its
youth; as if through that time of waiting it were being fashioned for
the end it waited for. But that was not all. She had clothed herself
unconsciously with poetry. She stood for a moment transfigured before
him; a woman with sweet eyes beholding her desired destiny from far.
Her soul (for a moment) rose in her face like a star--a dim prophetic
star that trembled between darkness and dawn. He knew that she saw
herself now as the possible mother of his children.

The anger and the jealousy were over; and all of a sudden she gave in.

"You can have the house, if you like, Keith."

"All right; I do like it. That's a dear little Beaver."

As he approached her her glance fled. "I didn't say you could have the
room. I want to keep it empty."

He put his arm round her and led her to the window. "What do you want
to keep it empty for, Flossie?"

Her poor little thoughts, surprised and dismayed, went scurrying
hither and thither, trying to hide their trail.

"Oh," she said, still looking away from him. "To store things in." He
drew her closer to him and kissed her tenderly.

It seemed to him that a serene and happy light r