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Page 37
"To the river, then. The last time I saw it, ice and snow had hidden it
completely."
The path was narrow until they got out of the woods, so Rose went ahead.
"I don't believe I fooled that robin by whistling to him," Allison
continued. "He pretended I did, but I believe he was only trying to be
polite."
"He wasn't, if it was the same robin I saw in our garden this morning. I
spoke to him most pleasantly and told him not to be afraid of me, but he
disappeared with a very brief, chirpy good-bye."
"Don't hurry so," he said, as he came up beside her and assisted her
over a fallen tree. "We've got the whole day, haven't we?"
"We have all the time there is," laughed Rose. "Everybody has, for that
matter."
"Have you had your breakfast?"
"No, have you?"
"Far from it. Everybody was asleep when I came out."
"Then you'll have breakfast with me," she said, quickly.
"Thank you," he smiled, "for taking the hint."
"But won't your father miss you?" she queried, with mock seriousness.
"He pays no attention whatever to my irregular habits, and I think
that's one reason why we get on so well together. It's a wise father who
knows his own child."
"Especially if it is a wise child," she replied. Her eyes were dancing
with mirth, a scarlet signal burned on either cheek, and her parted lips
were crimson. She seemed lovelier to him than ever before.
"Honestly, Rose, you seem to get prettier every day."
"Then," she smiled, "if I were younger, I might eventually become
dangerous."
"Rose--"
"Old Rose," she interrupted. The high colour faded from her face as she
spoke and left her pale.
Allison put his hand on her arm and stopped. "Rose, please don't. You're
not a day older than I am."
"Ten years," she insisted stubbornly, for women are wont to lean upon
the knife that stabs them and she was in a reckless mood. "When you're
forty, I'll be fifty."
A shadow crossed his face. "It hurts me, someway, to have you talk so. I
don't know how--nor why."
In a single swift surge her colour came back. "All right," she answered,
quietly, "hereafter I'm thirty, also. Thanking you for giving me ten
more years of life, for I love it so!"
The sun was well up in the heavens when they came to the river, and the
dark, rippling surface gave back the light in a thousand little dancing
gleams. The ice was broken, the snow was gone, and fragments of
shattered crystal went gently toward the open sea, lured by the song of
the river underneath.
"It doesn't look deep," remarked Rose.
"But it is, nevertheless. I nearly drowned myself here when I was a kid,
trying to dive to the bottom."
"I'm glad you didn't succeed. What a heavy blow it would have been to
your father!"
"Dear old Dad," said Allison, gently. "I'm all he has."
"And all he wants."
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