Part 19

“It’s a heavenly day,” he said.

They were silent after that, walking between the hedgerows, until they came to a grassy slope that was left to go wild, because Virginia loved wild flowers. Here, in the spring, were pink anemones and blood-root, and now there were little yellow flowers on the green blades of grass.

They sat down together on a fallen tree, which had been left lying there for a seat. Daniel looked down at the little yellow stars in the grass.

“Aren’t they pretty things?” he said musingly. “At first I thought this was only common turf, but it’s full of yellow stars.”

Virginia, following his eyes, smiled.

“They call that star-grass, Dan.”

“Star-grass?” he repeated thoughtfully, “it’s a pretty name, Virginia. Do you know why I was looking at it? Those little stars are everywhere like tiny points of flame--and they are all around your feet, little flames of incense.”

“There’s a legend,” she replied, “that those little stars were fastened on the blades of grass so that the humble things of earth, which couldn’t look so high as heaven, could see the stars in the grass. Isn’t it a quaint idea?”

Daniel nodded, leaning his chin on the hands that clasped the top of his walking-stick, and looking at them, something grim and sad coming into his face.

“I saw a white-breasted nuthatch yesterday in that tree,” said Virginia dreamily.

He did not reply, and there was such a long silence that she turned and looked at him. She saw how pale he had grown, how the delicate hollows had fallen in his cheeks, and the shadows under his eyes. Daniel’s eyes were beautiful, she thought--like a woman’s in their clear kindness. Perhaps it was the pain he had borne for so many years after his hurt.

“Virginia, if you look at me like that I shall say something,” he cried suddenly. “I can’t bear it! Turn your eyes away, Virginia.”

She laughed a little tremulously, blushing, too.

“But why, Dan? A cat may look at a king, you know.”

He did not answer for a while. He was digging little holes in the soft turf with his stick.

“A cripple can’t speak,” he said at last. “A cripple can’t tell a woman what he feels, even when that woman is an angel of compassion.”

“But you’re not a cripple, Dan. You’re only a little lame. It grows less, too, every day.”

“I overheard father once,” Daniel replied bitterly. “He called me a cripple. ‘No girl wants a cripple,’ he said.”

“Oh, how cruel,” Virginia cried. “And it’s not true, Dan; it’s not true at all!”

Daniel started, looking around at her, but her face was averted. He only saw her charming profile against the beauty of the foliage behind her. Something in it--something tender and sympathetic--reached him. He drew a long breath.

“Virginia, you can’t mean----”

She said nothing, but she lifted her eyes a little shyly to his face, and this time Daniel could not resist the look.

“You can’t mean that you’d marry me!” he cried, and then softly, with infinite tenderness: “Will you, Virginia?”

“Yes, Dan,” she answered, smiling.

Her smile seemed to change his whole world for him, and to fill it with an ineffable tenderness and light. It was no longer the sweet whistling of a robin that he heard, but the music of the spheres. The very ground was carpeted with stars--with tiny stars that ran like little flames all the way to Virginia’s feet, for--like the humble things of earth--Daniel had found his bit of heaven there.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.