They both found themselves staring down at the china box in Matthew’s hand with the tiny painted flower on its lid. As with one accord they both seemed to think of it at the same moment.

“A rose!” said Matthew.

“We’ll each pick a rose… just the bud, without a stem!” said Sabina, then turned and the next instant was flying down the stairs, through the house, outside, across the courtyard, and down into the garden. A few minutes later, both Sabina and Matthew were catching their breath and walking slowly through the baron’s many varieties of roses, looking for just the one each wanted to select to put in the china box as a seal of their friendship, and their mutual pledge to meet again.

After ten minutes they approached one another, each with a hand held behind the back.

“What color is your bud?” asked Matthew.

“I don’t know, what color is yours?” Sabina asked with a coy smile.

Matthew returned the smile. “Not red,” he said. “I would not want to make the mistake your neighbor did.”

“Yellow then?”

“I have other favorite colors too, you know.” Matthew smiled. “What about you?”

“So do I,” rejoined Sabina, laughing now. “I love all my father’s roses!”

“All right,” he said, “I can see you are determined to be difficult. So… that will be another condition of the hiding of this friendship box. We put the buds inside in secret, and we won’t see the other’s rose until we open it again… together. Then we’ll tell why we chose whatever colors we did. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” said Sabina.

Matthew knelt on the ground, set down the tiny box, and took off the lid. Sabina knelt beside him.

“Now we’ll both close our eyes,” he said, “and put our buds inside.”

They both closed their eyes.

“Are your eyes shut?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I’m putting my rose in the box… there—I’m finished. Now it’s your turn.”

Sabina fumbled with her fingers, found the box, and put her rosebud in it.

“Done,” she said.

Still with his eyes closed, Matthew felt to see that both little flowers were inside. Then he replaced the lid.

“Open your eyes,” he said.

They looked at each other, laughed, and stood.

“We did it,” said Matthew. “Now let’s go hide it!”

They hurried from the garden, and in a minute or two found themselves, once more, standing in the dark, quiet, earthy room under the small library with only the dim light of Sabina’s small flashlight.

“Where shall we hide it?” said Matthew, glancing all about.

“Those stone shelves up there,” said Sabina. “There’s nothing on them but a few pieces of old broken pots.”

“Somebody might see it just sitting up there.”

“No, we’ll stick it at the back, and it’s up so high, from down here no one could see.”