"Are you----" but then the boy looked full in his face and the old man could not take his eyes from that searching smile. And as he looked, there grew around his heart the sweet faint breath of lilac trees, though it was early autumn and not at all the spring. And deep in the child's eyes was so strange a soul--yet so familiar! As he looked yet deeper the lilac scent grew stronger and he dared not turn away his eyes, lest he should lose it. So he listened to the child, who spoke brightly yet gravely, with his head resting against the old man's knee. "See!" he said, "the lilacs are all out! I took a bunch to school, and the teacher wore them in her dress. Oh, but I grow tired of the school in the mornings, when the birds sing under the window! The brook is all full with the flood water, do you know?" "Yes," said the old man dreamily, "yes, I know." "There are pickerel there--I saw one, anyway!" said the boy. "The old one--he lives under the stone all alone. If I could get him, I'd be proud enough! But I never can--I can only catch him on a Friday night when the moon is full, and then I'm not allowed out! The man that weeds the garden told me that. Do you remember?" "Yes, I remember," said the old man. "But if I don't fish, I don't care so much," said the boy happily. "For I get so wet and dirty, and Rachel doesn't like me then. I can't look on her book. She is so dear! She never spots the ink on her apron, like the other girls. And she never eats fish, either. She thinks it hurts them too much to kill them. I don't think so--do you? But girls are different." "Where are you going to-night?" said the old man, quietly, yet his voice trembled. "I'm going to sing to Rachel's grandfather. He's blind, you know." "Yes," said the old man, "and old. His hair is white. He walks with a cane. But he loves the singing." "Then to-morrow I must go to church," said the boy. "The minister talks and prays and I get so sleepy. But mother keeps a peppermint for me, just before the second hymn. Then I have it for the long prayer. And I can sing the hymns. Rachel never looks at me, she sits so still in church. And she won't play on Sunday. I can have my whip and two of the largest marbles. Do you think that is wrong?" "No," said the old man, "I don't think that is wrong." "And we have gingerbread on the porch in the afternoon," said the boy, "and Rachel comes. Mother says children must not be vexed at the Lord's Day." "Yes," said the old man, "mother is so good to us--so good----" and when he saw clearly again, the child was gone. Only the shadow lay upon the upper step of the porch, and the sunbeam was shrunken to a narrow path of light. He stretched out his trembling hands and called sorrowfully to the boy. "Come back! O come back! I had forgotten so much! And the lilacs----" but he was alone. And his hair was almost white. He covered his face with his hands and shivered. For the shadow was creeping up the porch.