The White Lily. 69

 

This was the meaning of his dream.

Pearl was dead !
He had neglected and forsaken her—he who

should have guarded her most, and now she was

dead! —

He covered his face with his hands and began to
sob aloud. ;

It was some few moments before he took courage
to draw near the place where lay the little white
form.

As he did so he was conscious once more of that

- strange, sweet scent which already had struck both

the children as something unlike anything they had
ever felt before, and, kneeling down beside the little
prostrate figure, he saw that Pearl was not alone and
deserted.

He saw that close to her neck nestled her poor
little friend, the field-mouse, with bright eyes fixed
upon her white face, and upon her breast lay a white
flower with other tiny blue blossoms at its side.

It was from this flower that the strange perfume