When I was twenty years old I had been for two years a happy wife, for one year a glad mother, and had for some time remembered Esther only in the vague, passing way in which happy souls recall old shadows of the griefs of other hearts. As my boy entered on a second summer he began to droop a little, and the physician recommended that we should take him to the sea-side; so it came to pass that on the morning of my twentieth birthday I was sitting, with my baby in my arms, on a rocky sea-shore, at one of the well-known summer resorts of the New Hampshire coast. Near me sat a woman whose face had interested me strangely ever since my arrival. She seemed an invalid; but there was an atmosphere of overflowing vitality about her, in spite of her feebleness, which made her very presence stimulating and cheering to every one. I had longed to speak with her, but as yet had not done so. While I sat watching her face and my baby's, and the face of the sea, she was joined by her husband, who had just come from a walk in the fields, and had brought her a large bouquet of red clover and feathery grasses. She took it eagerly with great delight, and exclaimed:-- "I wonder what the Clover thinks? Intimate friend of Bob-o-links!" I could not control the sudden start with which I heard these words. Who was this that knew Esther Wynn's verses by heart? I could hardly refrain from speaking to her at once, and betraying all. But I reflected instantly that I must be very cautious; it would be almost impossible to find out what I longed to know without revealing how my own acquaintance with the verses had come about. Days passed before I ventured to allude to the subject; but one evening, as we were walking together, she stooped and picked a clover-blossom, and said,-- "I really think I love red clover better than any wild flower we have." "I thought so," said I, "when I saw you take that big bunch your husband brought you the other morning. That was before I knew you: I felt almost rude, I watched you so, in spite of myself." "But I had watched you quite as much," said she, smiling; "I thought then of giving you a part of the clover. Edward always brings me huge bouquets of it every day; he knows so well how I love it." "I heard you quote a little couplet of verse about it then," said I, looking away from her, that she might not see my face: "I was so near you I could not help hearing what you said." "Oh, yes," said she, "I wonder what the Clover thinks? Intimate friend of Bob-o-links'-- "I do not know but that old clover-song is the real reason I love clover so. My mother taught it to me when I was a little child. It is all very quaint and sweet. Would you like to hear it?" I felt myself color scarlet, but I replied,-- "Oh, yes, pray repeat it." When she had repeated the verses she went on speaking, to my great relief, saving me from the necessity of saying anything.