I was well content, for the roses brought a presence very near. In their fragrance, their beauty, their dewy freshness, their superiority to other flowers, they seemed the emblem of the maiden who had made harmony in the garden when Nature was at her best. The scene, as we had stood there together, grew so vivid that I saw her again almost in reality, her face glowing with the undisguised, irrepressible pleasure that had been caused by my unexpected tribute to the absolute truthfulness of her character. Again I heard her piquant laugh; then her sweet, vibratory voice as she sang hymns that awakened other than religious emotions, I fear. By an odd freak of fancy the flowers seemed an embodied strain from Chopin's nocturne that she had played, and the different shades of color the rising and falling of the melody. "What do they mean?" I murmured to myself. "At any rate I see no York and Lancaster buds among them." "Is thee so very fond of roses that thee gazes so long and intently at them?" Mrs. Yocomb quietly asked. I started, and I had still sufficient blood to crimson my pallid face. Turning away I said, "They recalled a scene in the garden where they grew. It seemed to me that Miss Warren had grown there too, she was so like them; and that this impression should have been made by a girl bred in the city struck me as rather strange." "Thy impression was correct--she's genuine," Mrs. Yocomb replied gravely, and her eyes rested on me in a questioning and sympathetic way that I understood better as I thought it over afterward. "Yes," I said, "she made just that impression on me from the first. We met as strangers, and in a few hours, without the slightest effort on her part, she won my absolute trust. This at first greatly surprised me, for I regret to say that my calling has made me distrustful. I soon learned, however, that this was just the impression that she should make on any one capable of understanding her." A deep sigh was my companion's only answer. "Mrs. Yocomb," I continued, earnestly, "was I taken ill while you were speaking? I have a vague, tormenting impression that something occurred which I cannot recall. The last that I can remember was your speaking to us; and then--and then--wasn't there a storm?" "There may have been. We've had several showers of late. Thee had been overdoing, Richard, and thee felt the effects of the fever in thy system before thee or any of us knew what was the matter. Thy mind soon wandered; but thee was never violent; thee made us no trouble--only our anxiety. Now I hope I've satisfied thee." "How wondrously kind you've all been to such a stranger! But Miss Adah made reference to something that I can't understand." Mrs. Yocomb looked perplexed and annoyed. "I'll ask Adah," she said, gravely. "It's time thee took this medicine and slept." The draught she gave me was more quieting than her words had been, for I remembered nothing more distinctly until I awoke in the brightness of another day.