cottage.

As we approached the garden gate, I saw a servant from the house
waiting there. He carried a message from my mother--a message for
me.

"My mistress wishes you to go home, Master George, as soon as you
can. A letter has come by the coach. My master means to take a
post-chaise from London, and sends word that we may expect him in
the course of the day."

Mary's attentive face saddened when she heard those words.

"Must you really go away, George," she whispered, "before you see
what I have got waiting for you at home?"

I remembered Mary's promised "surprise," the secret of which was
only to be revealed to me when we got to the cottage. How could I
disappoint her? My poor little lady-love looked ready to cry at
the bare prospect of it.

I dismissed the servant with a message of the temporizing sort.
My love to my mother--and I would be back at the house in half an
hour.

We entered the cottage.

Dame Dermody was sitting in the light of the window, as usual,
with one of the mystic books of Emanuel Swedenborg open on her
lap. She solemnly lifted her hand on our appearance, signing to
us to occupy our customary corner without speaking to her. It was
an act of domestic high treason to interrupt the Sibyl at her
books. We crept quietly into our places. Mary waited until she
saw her grandmother's gray head bend down, and her grandmother's
bushy eyebrows contract attentively, over her reading. Then, and
then only, the discreet child rose on tiptoe, disappeared
noiselessly in the direction of her bedchamber, and came back to
me carrying something carefully wrapped up in her best cambric
handkerchief.

"Is that the surprise?" I whispered.

Mary whispered back: "Guess what it is?"

"Something for me?"

"Yes. Go on guessing. What is it?"

I guessed three times, and each guess was wrong. Mary decided on
helping me by a hint.

"Say your letters," she suggested; "and go on till I stop you."

I began: "A, B, C, D, E, F--" There she stopped me.

"It's the name of a Thing," she said; "and it begins with F."

I guessed, "Fern," "Feather," "Fife." And here my resources
failed me.

Mary sighed, and shook her head. "You don't take pains," she
said. "You are three whole years older than I am. After all the
trouble I have taken to please you, you may be too big to care
for my present when you see it. Guess again."

"I can't guess."

"You must!"

"I give it up."

Mary refused to let me give it up. She helped me by another hint.

"What did you once say you wished you had in your boat?" she
asked.

"Was i t long ago?" I inquired, at a loss for an answer.

"Long, long ago! Before the winter. When the autumn leaves were
falling, and you took me out one evening for a sail. Ah, George,
_ you_ have forgotten!"

Too true, of me and of my brethren, old and young alike! It is
always _his_ love that forgets, and _her_ love that remembers. We
were only two children, and we were types of the man and the
woman already.

Mary lost patience with me. Forgetting the terrible presence of
her grandmother, she jumped up, and snatched the concealed object
out of her handkerchief.

"There! " she cried, briskly, "_now_ do you know what it is?"

I remembered at last. The thing I had wished for in my boat, all
those months ago, was a new flag. And here was the flag, made for
me in secret by Mary's own hand! The ground was green silk, with
a dove embroidered on it in white, carrying in its beak the
typical olive-branch, wrought in gold thread. The work was the
tremulous, uncertain work of a child's fingers. But how
faithfully my little darling had remembered my wish! how


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