"My poor boy," wrote the Mareschal, "never saw me with other than a stern and disdainful countenance, and now he is gone in the belief that I neither knew how to love him, nor esteemed him according to his deserts," and the remorse and pity of it all. In the silence of the night it all came home to me. What a touching picture it is, the reserved old man with no word of love on his tongue, and yet his heart full of affection. "For whom," cries the grief-stricken old man, "did I reserve the discovery of that singular affection that I had for him in my soul?" What a pathetic tale it is, one of Montaigne's many. What a homely tongue the great essayist has, and yet what a wise one--possessing, as he does, the art of telling us all the old tales of Greece and Rome clothed in summer verdure, so that the leaves of his discourse never grow stale or faded. He makes the ancient world live again, and gives men and women who lived and died hundreds of years before he was born new life and beauty. "Oh, do not let us love in vain. Let us find out our love before the wave has gone over the dear one's head," is what I seemed to hear. "Do not let our lips call in the coming time, 'Lord, too late, too late!'" I thought of little Bess, the happy owner of her dog, and I said, at least, Lord, my little maid will look back on her childhood, I hope, as a happy, happy time, a time of flowers, and joyous play. Bad times must come, but let me be a happy parent in that I have given my child no more unhappy time than I could help! The next morning. I sauntered off into the garden. There were the gladioli to plant, so that they might blossom well before the autumn frosts. [Sidenote: FLOWERS IN A GARDEN]