Shall I ever forget that springtime! The garden was a garden of Eden with flowers and birds--the bulbs in bloom, bushes of carmine japonica, great clouds of white almond and pink peach blossom overhead, and the scent of daphne and violets at every turn. As for the house, it was a little paradise on earth, which a house can never be, to my thinking, without a baby in it. To see that dear child crawling all over it, with Phyllis flying after him--to hear him chirping to his grandfather, who seemed to forget there were such things as pigs and fowls to see to--oh, it was too blissful for words! I easily persuaded Edmund that Collins Street was a place for women and children to live in when they must and get out of when they could, and he knew when he confided his treasures to me that they could not be in safer hands. He told me so, and I am happy to say the event justified his faith. Every time that he came over--which was almost daily, though often he had not half an hour to stay--he found them rosier and plumper, turning the scale at a trifle more. As I kept them for the summer--in the middle of which we all went to Lorne for a month--they were with me at the time of Harry's marriage in the spring. Edmund came down that morning to fetch his wife and Lily to the wedding, bringing a carriage for them and Tom. Of course they wanted me to go--everybody wanted it--Tom almost flatly declined to stir a step without me; but I said, no, I would keep house and take care of the precious grandson. After the way I had been deprived of him in the past, it was beautiful to think of having him for a whole day to myself. And, as I said to Tom, it was all an old woman was fit for. "Oh, I like that!" he laughed, throwing an arm round my waist. "You know very well you've only got to put your smart gown on and walk away from the lot of 'em--bride and bridesmaids and all." Old goose! But I am sure when he was dressed, and the lilies of the valley stuck in his buttonhole, he could walk away from any young bridegroom in the matter of looks--aye, even his own handsome son. They all kissed me fondly before leaving the house--my pretty girls, and Edmund, who was as dear as they--and I stood at the gate to see them go with the pleasant knowledge that I should be more conspicuous by my absence than any one by their presence at the wedding party, except the bride herself.