“I feared it.” He shook his head and warded off the proffered glass. “I am a homœopath.” “You’re a baby, that’s what you are!” said Holly, tauntingly. “Ha! No one shall accuse me of cowardice.” He clenched his hands. “Administer it, please.” Holly moved toward him until her skirt brushed his knees. As she dipped the spoon a faint flush crept into her cheeks. Winthrop saw, and understood. “No, give it to me,” he said. “I will feed myself. Then, no matter what happens――and I fear the worst!――you will not be implicated.” Holly yielded the glass and moved back, watching him sympathetically while he swallowed two spoonfuls of the medicine. “Was it awfully bad?” she asked, as he passed the glass to her with a shudder. Winthrop reflected. Then: “Frankly, it was,” he replied. “But it’s a good deal like having your teeth filled; it’s almost worth it for the succeeding glow of courage and virtue and relief it brings. Put it out of sight, please, and let us talk of pleasant things.” “What?” asked Holly, as she sat down once more on the bench. “Well, let me see. Suppose, Miss Holly, you tell me how you came to have such a charming and unusual name.” “My mother gave it to me,” answered Holly, softly. “She was very fond of holly.” “I beg your pardon,” exclaimed Winthrop. “It was an impertinent question.” “Oh, no. My mother only lived a little while after I was born――about five weeks. She died on New Year’s morning. On Christmas Day father picked a spray of holly from one of the bushes down by the road. It was quite full of red berries and so pretty that he took it in to my mother. Father said she took it in her hands and cried a little over it, and he was sorry he had brought it to her. They had laid me beside her in the bed and presently she 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, 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―――― “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. “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.”