placed the holly sprig over me and kissed me and looked at father. She couldn’t talk very much then. But father understood what she meant. ‘Holly?’ he asked,[167] and mother smiled, and—and that was ‘how come.’” Holly, her hands clasped between her knees, looked gravely and tenderly away across the sunny garden. Winthrop kept silence for a moment. Then—— [167] “I fancy they loved each other very dearly, your father and mother,” he said. “Oh, they did!” breathed Holly. “Father used to tell me—about it. He always said I was just like my mother. It—it must have been beautiful. Do you reckon,” she continued wistfully, “people love that way nowadays?” “To-day, yesterday, and to-morrow,” answered Winthrop. “The great passions—love, hate, acquisitiveness—are the same now as in the beginning, and will never change while the earth spins around. I hope, Miss Holly, that the years will bring you as great a love and as happy a one as your mother’s.” Holly viewed him pensively a moment. Then a little flush crept into her cheeks and she turned her head away. [168] [168] “No,” she said, “I’m not dear and sweet and gentle like my mother. Besides, maybe I’d never find a man like my father.” “Perhaps not,” replied Winthrop, “although I hope you will. But even if not, I wouldn’t despair. Love is a very wonderful magician, who transmutes clay into gold, transforms baseness into nobility, and changes caitiffs into kings.” He laughed amusedly. “Great Scott! I’m actually becoming rhetorical! It’s this climate of yours, Miss Holly; there is something magical about it; it creeps into one’s veins like wine and makes one’s heart thump at the sound of a bird’s song. Why, hang it, in another week I shall find myself singing love songs under your window on moonlight nights!” “Oh, that would be lovely!” cried Holly, clapping her hands. “I haven’t been serenaded for the longest time!” “Do you mean that such things are really done here?” “Of course! The boys often serenade.[169] When I came home from the Academy, Julian and a lot of them serenaded me. It was a white, white night and they stood over there under my windows; I remember how black their shadows were on the path. Julian and Jim Stuart played guitars and some of
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