"Yes; but what ails you, child? You glare upon me like a maniac." "Hush! hush! don't speak!" said I. As I sunk back, in a sort of dream, into the rocking-chair in which I had been idling, the garden caught my eye through the open window. The gate overarched with honeysuckle, the long alley with its fragrant flowering border, the grape arbor, the steep green hill behind, lay before me in the still, rich beauty of June. In a twinkling, memory had swept the dust from my little cabinet picture, and let in upon it a sudden light. The ten intervening years vanished like a dream, and that long-forgotten garden scene started up, vivid as in the hour when it actually passed before my eyes. The clue to that mystery which had so spellbound my childish fancy was at length found. I sat for a time in silence, lost in a delicious, confused reverie. "The Button-Rose was a gift from him, then?" were my first words. "What, Kate?" said Aunt Linny, now opening her large blue eyes with a strange look. "Did you give away the flower-pot too? That was so pretty! Whom did you give it to?" "Incredible!" she exclaimed, coloring, and with the strongest expression of surprise. "Truly, little pitchers have not been slandered!" "But the wonderful humming-bird, Aunty! What had that to do with it?" "Kate," said my aunt, "you talk like one in sleep. Wake up, and let me know what all this means." "I see it all now!" I rattled on, more to myself than her. "First young love,--parting gift,--Cousin Harry proves fickle,--Aunt Linny banishes the Button-Rose from her window,--takes to books, and educating naughty nieces, and doing good to everybody,--'bearing to live,' as more heroic than 'daring to die,'--in ten years gets so that she can speak of it with composure, as a lesson to romantic girls. So?" "Even so, Katy!" she replied, quietly; "and to that early disappointment I owe more than to anything that ever befell me." She said this with a smile; but her voice trembled a little, and I perceived that a soft dew had gathered over her eyes. By an irresistible impulse I rose, and stealing softly behind her, clasped my arms round her neck, and kissing her forehead whispered, "Forgive me, sweet Aunty!" "Not a bit of harm, Katy," she replied, drawing me down for a warm kiss. "But what a gypsy you must be," she added, in her usually lively tone, "to have trudged along so many years with this precious little bundle, and said never a word to anybody!" "I've not thought of it myself, these ever so many years," said I, "and it seems like witchwork that it should all have come to me at this moment." I then related to her my childish reminiscences and speculations, which amused her not a little. Her hearty, mirthful zest showed that the theme was not a disquieting one. I now begged her to proceed with her story. "But stay a moment," said I; "let me fetch our garden bonnets, that we may enjoy it in the very scene of the romance."