“Nightmare? Not a bit of it. I tell you what to do, Virginia--when you’re through with it let me have it. I’ll hang it up over my desk when I want an inspiration. A poor lawyer needs an inspiration. The law’s as dry as dust.” She lifted her eyes reluctantly but smilingly to him. She had almost been afraid to meet them, but she was not now. Dan’s look was just the same look he had always given her--and she had never understood! “I’ll give it to you for a waste-paper basket,” she said gaily. Then she stopped, her hand on the stone gate-post of the old church. They had been walking slowly through the lane, and Daniel halted, surprised. “Going in here, Virginia?” She smiled. “Yes. There’s to be a Sunday-school festival. Besides, they’ve just cleaned up the church. I took all our prayer-books away for the refurbishing; now I’m going to put them back in the pew.” As she spoke, he glanced down at the armful of books she held. He had been to church with the Denbighs more than once, and he remembered the colonel’s big prayer-book and hymnal and the books for their guests. He had used that old red one himself. Then his eye fell upon two smaller ones of brown morocco with Virginia’s monogram on the clasp of the case. “You’re still carrying your old set, Virginia,” he remarked thoughtfully. Here was a chance for a gift, perhaps. “They’re worn at the edges.” She looked down, blushing suddenly. “Are they? I hadn’t noticed.” Something in her tone had made Daniel take the books from the pile on her arm. It was a set, prayer-book and hymnal bound in one and prettily mounted. He slipped the clasp and opened them. A faded pansy slipped between the pages. He clasped it hastily and handed it back. “I thought I knew them,” he said hastily. “Yes?” Virginia’s eyes avoided his. Her lips were trembling, he thought. “I’ve had them a long time. William--your brother--gave them to me when I was just sixteen.” “I wonder,” said Daniel, looking up at the old church, “how long ago they planted that English ivy! There’s a perfect mantle of it, isn’t there?” “Grandfather says the old rector planted it--the one who married grandfather and grandmother in this very church.” “I suppose he did as much for my grandparents,” said Daniel. “I wonder if they gave him a good fee!” “Oh, you lawyer!” cried Virginia, and laughed happily. But Daniel continued to look at the ivy. He had seen her face. “She still loves William,” he thought bitterly. Virginia, hiding her confusion, began to ascend the old stone steps. “Why, there’s your father!” she exclaimed suddenly. “I didn’t know that he often came this way.” Daniel, who was very pale again, looked around. “He counted on walking down with me, I fancy,” he remarked quietly, aware of the thunderstorm in Mr. Carter’s face. Virginia saw it, too, and made haste. “I’m going in now. Good-by, Daniel, and remember--about that next speech.”