Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1914-04-10

liant much OF the time on his knees,
his hands plunging deep into the black
spongy earth, and Shirley with broad
hat flung on the grass. her fingers
separating the clinging t~hread-like
roots and her small arched foot lamp
ing down the soil about them. Her
hair-the color Of wet raw wood in
the sunlight-was very near the brown
head and sometimes their fingers
touched over the work. Once, as they
stood up, flushed with the exercise, a
great black and orange butterfly,
dazed with the sun-glow, alighted on
Valiant's rolled-up sleeve. He held his
arm perfectly still and blew gently
on the wayering pinions till it swan
away. When a redbird firted by, to
his delight she whistled it's call so
perfectly that it wheeled in midnight
and tilted inquiringly back toward
them.
AS they descended the terrace again
to the pergola, he said. There's only
one thing lacking at Damory Court
a sun-dial."
Then you haven't found it?" she
SAiou uSASAeeulJ. OomS anu lel me
show you"
She led the way through the maze
of beds at n side till they reached
a hedge laced thickly with Virginia
creeper. He parted this leafy screen.
bending back the springing fronds
that thrust against the fimsy muslin
of her gown and threatened to spear
the p~ink-rosed hat that cast an ador-
able warm tint over her creamy face.
thinking that never had the old place
seen such a picture as she made
framed in the deep green.
Some such thought was in the ma
jor's mind, too, as he came slowly up
the terrace below. He paused, to take
off his hat and wipe his brow.
With the place all fixed up this
way" he sighed to himself. 81 could
believe it was only last week that
Beauty Valiant and Southall and |
were boys. loaing around this gyar-
den. And to think that now It's Va
liant's son and Judith's daughter!
Why, 1t seems like yesterday that Shir-
ley there was only knee-high to a
grasshopper-and I used to tell her
her hair was that color because she
ran through hell bareheaded. I'm
about a thousand years old, / reckon!"
Meanwhile the two figures above
had pushed through the tangle into
a circular sunny space where stood a
short round pillar of red onyx. 1t was
a sun-dial, it's vine-clad disk cut of
gray polished stone in which it's metal
tongue was socketed. Round the outer
edge of the disk ran an inscription
in archaic lettering. Valiant pulled
away the clustering ivy leaves and
read: Il count nc hours but the hap
py ones."s
"If that had only been truei" he
said.
1T is true. See how the vines hid
the sun from 1t. 1t ceased to mark
the time after the Court was de-
serted"
"Tll put moonfowers at its base and
where o are standing, Madonna
lilies. The outer part of the circle
shall have bridal-wreath and white
irises, and they shall shade out into
pastel colors-mauves and grays and
heliotropes. Oh, | shall love this spot!
perhaps sometime the best of all"
(which do you love the most now?"
He leaned slightly toward her, n
hand on the dial's time-notched rim.
Don't you known" he said in a lower
voice. could any other spot mean to
me what that acre under the hemlocks
means?"
Her face was turned from him, her
fingers pulling at the drifting vine, and
a splinter OF sunlight tangled In her
hair like a lace of firefies.
81 could never forget it," he con-
tinued. The thing that spoiled my
fathers life happened there, yet there
we two first talked, and there you"
DON'T" she said, facing him.
DON'T"
"Ah, let me speak! I want to tell
you that | shall carry the memory of
that afternoon, and of your brave kind
ness, always, always! II / were
to see you again in this life, l should
always treasure it. II | died of thirst
in some Sahara, it would be the last
thing l should remember-your face
would De the last InluS l Suoulu seS!
If T."
In the silence there was the sound
of a slow football on the gravel walk,
and at the same moment he saw a
magical change. Shirley drew back.
The soft gentian blue Of her eyes
darkened. The lips that an instant
before had been tremulous, parted in
a low delicious laugh. She swept him
a deep curtsey.
81 am beholden to you, sir" she
said gaily, for a most knightly COM
pliment. There's the major. Come
and let US show him where we've
planted the ramblers."
CHAPTER XXI.