“Then never mind,” said the little girl. “No mummie, no nursie, nobody to scold you. You can go in the boat if you like. Come! Oh, Tiny do, do want to go in the boat; and there’s flowers on the udder side, fordet-me-nots!--wants to get fordet-me-nots. Come, gemplemans, come!” “Would you like to ride on my shoulder? and then we shall go quicker,” he said. She stood still at once, and held out her arms to be lifted up. Now Bertram was not the kind of man who makes himself into the horse, the bear, the lion, as occasion demands, for the amusement of children. He was more surprised to find himself with this little creature seated on his shoulder, than she was on her elevated seat, where indeed she was entirely at her ease, guiding him with imperative tugs at the collar of his coat and beating her small foot against his breast, as if she had the most perfect right to his attention and devotion. “This way, this way,” sang Tiny; “that way nasty way, down among the thorns--this way nice way; get fordet-me-nots for mummie; mummie never say nuffin--Tiny tan go!” He found himself thus hurrying over the park, with the child’s voice singing its little monologue over his head, flushed with rebellion against the unconscious mother, much amused at himself. And yet it was not amusement; it was a curious sensation which Bertram could not understand. It is not quite an unexampled thing to fall in love with a child at first sight; but he was not aware that he had ever done it before, and to be turned so completely by the child into the instrument of her little rebellions and pleasures was more wonderful still. He laughed within himself, but his laugh went out of him like the flame of a candle in the wind. He felt more like to cry, if he had been a subject for crying. But why he could not tell. Never was man in a more disturbed and perplexed state of mind. Guided by Tiny’s pullings and beatings, he got to the pond at last, a pond upon the other side of which there was, strange to say, visible among the russet foliage, one little clump of belated forget-me-nots quite out of season. The child’s quick eye had noted them as she had gone by with her nurse on some recent walk. Bertram knew a great many things, but it is very doubtful whether he was aware that it was wonderful to find forget-me-nots so late. And Tiny was a sight to see when he put her down in the stern of the boat and pulled across the pond with a few long strokes. Her eyes, which had a golden light in their darkness, shone with triumph and delight; the brown of her little sunburnt face glowed transparent as if there was a light within; her dark curls waved; the piquancy of the complexion so unusual in a child, the chant of her little voice shouting, “Fordet-me-nots, fordet-me-nots!” her little rapture of eagerness and pleasure carried him altogether out of himself. He had loved that complexion in his day; perhaps it was some recollection, some resemblance, which was at the