It was a heavenly, warm spring morning, and Sheba, having made herself ready, wandered into the garden to wait among the flowers. The rapturous first scents of the year were there, drawn by the sun and blown by vagrant puffs of wind from hyacinths and jonquils, white narcissus and blue violets. Sheba walked among the beds, every few minutes kneeling down upon the grass to bury her face in pink and yellow and white clusters, inhaling the breath of flowers and the pungent freshness of the sweet brown earth at the same time. She had lived among leaves and growing things until she felt herself in some unexplainable way a part of the world they belonged to. The world beyond the mountains she knew nothing of; but this world, which was the brown earth springing forth into green blades and leaves and little streaked buds, warming into bloom and sun-drenched fragrance, setting the birds singing and nest-building, giving fruits and grain, and yellow and scarlet leaves, and folding itself later in snow and winter sleep--this world she knew as well as she knew herself. The birds were singing and nest-building this morning, and, as she hung over a bed of purple and white hyacinths, kneeling on the grass and getting as close to them as she could, their perfume mounted to her brain and she began to kiss them. "I love you," she said, dwelling on their sweet coolness with her lips; "I love and love you!" And suddenly she made a little swoop and kissed the brown earth itself. "And, oh! I love you, too!" she said. "I love you, too!" She looked like young spring's self when she stood up as Tom came towards her. Her smile was so radiant a thing that he felt his heart quake with no other reason than this sight of her happy youth. "What are you thinking of, Sheba?" he asked. "I am thinking," she said, as she glanced all about her, the smile growing more entrancing, "I am thinking how happy I am, and how happy the world is, and how I love you, and," with a pretty laugh, "the flowers, and the sun, and the earth--and everything in the world!" "Yes," said Tom, looking at her tenderly. "It's the spring, Sheba." She caught his arm and clung to it, laughing again. "Yes," she answered; "and when it isn't the spring, it is the summer; and when it isn't the summer, it is the autumn; and when it isn't the autumn, it is the winter; and we sit by the fire and know the spring is making its way back every day. Everything is beautiful--everything is happy, Uncle Tom." "Good Lord!" exclaimed Tom. "Why do you say that?" Sheba asked. "Why do you look so--so puzzled, Uncle Tom?" "Well," said Tom, holding her out at arm's length before him, "the truth is, I've suddenly realised something. I'd like to know what I'm to do with _this_!" "This?" laughed Sheba. "Am I 'this'? You look at me as if I was 'this'."