“Is there anything in the world softer than the petal of a pansy!” remarked Mrs. Morrison, pressing one of the flowers against her lips, and gently drawing it across them.

Laurel had a flower against her lips, too, and closing her eyes, likewise tested its texture.

“The end of a horse’s nose is as soft,” she said contemplatively, “and,” she went on, eyes still closed, “the back of a little tiny baby’s head, where they’ll let you kiss it.”

Mrs. Morrison broke into a laugh.

“Dear delightful Laurel! That’s so! That’s so!” And suddenly she took hold of one of Laurel’s hands and drew the back of that, too, across her lips, and kissed it.

That playful little kiss of Helen Morrison’s on the back of Laurel’s hand made Laurel’s world whirl round her giddily for a moment. No one had ever kissed her on the hand before! It was a caress entirely different from an ordinary kiss upon the lips. She felt exalted, like a young knight in armor before his lady. She wished she dared kneel on the ground and kiss the hem of Mrs. Morrison’s dress!

3

LAUREL WONDERED A great deal about Mrs. Morrison’s husband, and finally one day concluded to inquire about him.

“Is your husband away on business?” she began politely.

“Why, no. Didn’t you know? Didn’t your father tell you?”

Laurel shook her head. “No, Father has told me nothing.”

“He is not living, Laurel,” Mrs. Morrison announced gently.

“Oh,” said Laurel. “Of course,” she went on, “I knew he wasn’t really away on business, because of the drawers in the chiffonier being perfectly empty, and the closet beside yours, too, where you hung my things. But I didn’t see any pictures of him around, so I thought perhaps you were separated.”

“The portrait in the big gold frame in the living-room is a picture of him, Laurel, and that’s a copy of it, in the silver frame on my dressing-table.”

“Is he your husband?” exclaimed Laurel.

She had studied the portrait. The man in the portrait looked like a grandfather! He had long drooping mustaches, almost white, and the sockets of his eyes hung down like the eyes of a hunting-hound Laurel had seen in the Maine woods once.

“Yes. Why?”

“He looks too old for you!”

“Does he? Well, he was older, but, oh, ever so kind, and the father of my dear boys, and,” she added after a pause, “the father of my little girl, too.”

“Your little girl?”

“Yes, Laurel, my only little girl. She died, before she was old enough to walk without holding tight onto one of my fingers.”

“What was her name?”

“Carol.”

“How old would she be?”

“About as old as you, I think.”

“Did she have light hair, or dark?”

“Dark.”

“Curly?”

“No, straight. Oh how we did try to make it curl,” laughed Mrs. Morrison.