Then he said, "Oh, Daffodil, are you really going home?" "They have sent for me. The winter has gone!" and there was a piquant smile hovering about her face. "It has been such a short winter I have not done half the things I planned to do. But I am resolved to run away some time in the summer. It is ungrateful not to visit mother. And I do want to see the town, and all the old friends." "Oh, do come!" There was a joyous light in her eyes, and a sweetness played about her lips. Yes, he surely thought he would. Then they went on about other matters. Bartram was not much versed in love indications, but something rose within him--as if there should be a higher, stronger, more overwhelming love for _her_. She would make them talk cheerfully about her going. She said sagely there was such a thing as wearing out one's welcome, and that now she should feel free to come again. "Next winter," said her guardian. "I think I can get along through the summer with this thought to sustain me, but I shall be a year older, and perhaps more feeble." "I strictly forbid either of the consequences;" she laughed with adorable gayety, her eyes alight with fun. "One would think I was of great consequence," she exclaimed a few days later, "by the lamentations my friends make. Or is it a fashion? It will make it harder for me to go. If we could move Pittsburg over! But there are the splendid rivers, and the hills covered with rhododendrons. And, you see, I shall miss the daffodils." "If it is such sorrow to part with one, I hardly know how you can endure losing so many," said Aldis Bartram gravely. She looked at him enquiringly. He seldom paid compliments to any one but Madame Clerval. There were bloom and beauty enough in the grand old town, where every point was romantic. Every day Daffodil and her guardian were out driving, until it seemed to her she could have found her way about in the dark. And in his office Aldis Bartram sat thinking how lonely the house would be without the sunshine of her golden head, and the sound of her sweet, merry voice, her small, thoughtful ways, and the ease with which she could change from one mode of action that she saw was not bringing about a desirable result. At first he considered this a sort of frivolity, but he understood presently that she not infrequently gave up her own pleasure or method for something that suited M. de Ronville better. He was ambitious, and he had marked out a career for himself. He meant to be rich and respected, his instincts were all honorable, and this had commended him to his employer, who detested anything bordering on double dealing. So, from one position he had been advanced to another, and by persistent study had taken his degree with honor. He enjoyed the life of the class with which he was in keen touch, and he found he could maintain a degree of mental superiority that satisfied his ambition.