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AN UNFINISHED SONG

tesy, have asked him to call occasionally. I felt annoyed with her, but tried not to let her notice it. The doctor started to leave the room, but before doing so, brought a small table on which stood a flower vase containing a bouquet of sweet-scented flowers and placed it near the couch on which I rested.

"The fragrance of flowers is good for the nervous system," he said, and bidding me good-bye, left the room.

How strange it was these flowers brought back the memory of my childhood, and once more I saw that school-room and its sunny hours which cast ever anew a halo over the memory of early days. I remembered how fond Chotu had been of the flowers I had brought him, how carefully he had arranged them in a broken drinking glass, and placed them on a table near his seat; how I used to bend over from my seat to inhale their fragrance and in my childish way exclaim, "How very sweet these flowers are. How is it that the flowers at home are not half so sweet?"

How Chotu used to smile at me then and look so proud and happy. To-day it seemed as if it were Chotu who placed these flowers beside me. I forgot myself in the thought