"Nothing but live, and enjoy doing it. I actually sit here, day after day, as happy and contented with little things as Dulce is, and feel as if I wasn't much older than she," answered the girl, feeling as if some change was going on in that pleasant sort of pause, but unable to describe it.
"'As if a rose should shut and be a bud again,'"
murmured Mac, borrowing from his beloved Keats.
"Ah, but I can't do that! I must go on blooming whether I like it or not, and the only trouble I have is to know what leaf I ought to unfold next," said Rose, playfully smoothing out the white gown, in which she looked very like a daisy among the green.
"How far have you got?" asked Mac, continuing his catechism as if the fancy suited him.
"Let me see. Since I came home last year, I've been gay, then sad, then busy, and now I am simply happy. I don't know why; but seem to be waiting for what is to come next, and getting ready for it, perhaps unconsciously," she said, looking dreamily away to the hills again, as if the new experience was coming to her from afar.
Mac watched her thoughtfully for a minute, wondering how many more leaves must unfold, before the golden heart of this human flower would lie open to the sun. He felt a curious desire to help in some way, and could think of none better than to offer her what he had found most helpful to himself. Picking up
