flowers the hard-earned wealth that has a soul, which I shall lay at your feet."
"Who said my lover was dumb?" she sighed, with a twinkle in her shining eyes. "You must introduce me to your father soon. He must like me as my father does you, or our dream can never come true."
A pain gripped Phil's heart, but he answered, bravely:
"I will. He can't help loving you."
They stood on the rustic seat to carve their initials within a circle, high on the old beechwood book of love.
"May I write it out in full—Margaret Cameron—Philip Stoneman?" he asked.
"No—only the initials now—the full names when you've seen my father and I've seen yours. Jeannie Campbell and Henry Lenoir were once written thus in full, and many a lover has looked at that circle and prayed for happiness like theirs. You can see there a new one cut over the old, the bark has filled, and written on the fresh page is 'Marion Lenoir' with the blank below for her lover's name."
Phil looked at the freshly cut circle and laughed:
"I wonder if Marion or her mother did that?"
"Her mother, of course."
"I wonder whose will be the lucky name some day within it?" said Phil, musingly, as he finished his own.
