“Put a flower on your gate-post when the moon rises to-night, if you are willing that I should come. Two flowers, if you are willing that I should come sometime, but not now. Then, when your name-flower embroiders the marshes, you will know who loves you—who worships you—who offers you his all.” That night, when the moon swung high in the heavens, Iris tiptoed out into the garden, with the letter—sentient, alive, and human—crushed close against her heart. So conscious was she of its presence that she felt it blazoned upon her breast for all the world to read. Dew made the grass damp, but Iris did not care. Threads of silver light picked out a dainty tracery, and here and there set a dew-drop to gleaming like a diamond among [Pg 124]unnumbered pearls. Drowsy chirps came from the maples above her, where the little birds slept in their swaying nests and dreamed of wild flights at dawn. A great white moth brushed against her face, as softly as thistledown, and she laughed, because it was so like a kiss. [Pg 124] Down toward her corner of the garden she went, her dimity skirts daintily uplifted. The moonlight touched a cobweb woven across the rose-bush, and made a rainbow of it. “A little lost rainbow,” thought Iris, “out alone in the night, like me!” She stooped and gathered a sprig of mignonette, then a bit of rosemary from Mrs. Irving’s garden. “She won’t care,” said Iris, to herself; “she used to love somebody, long ago.” She bound the two together with a blade of grass, and put the merest kiss between them, then impulsively wiped it away. But, after all, some trace of it must linger, and Iris did not intend to give too much, so she threw it aside, as it happened, into Lynn’s garden. Then she gathered another sprig of mignonette, another leaf of rosemary, bound them together, and held them very far away, out of reach of temptation. [Pg 125] [Pg 125] Back toward the gate she went, her heart wildly beating against the imprisoned letter. She hesitated a moment in the shadow of the house. The great white moth had followed her and again touched her face caressingly. Suppose someone should see! But there was no one in sight. “Anyhow,” thought Iris, “if one wishes to come out for a moment in the evening, to walk as far as the gate, it is all right. If there should be
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