160 Make-Belteve

would be denied him. He gave himself up
to enjoyment of the present, bidding those
hold their peace who knew of his imminent
departure.

Doris had returned to the house in the
garden after her first experience of school,
and he was rejoiced to find her altogether
unchanged. There were things she knew, —
which had not yet been revealed to her
at the time when they two buried Hope
together. But the knowledge had not
changed her: she was still Doris. The
Visitor had feared that he might find her
vastly aged and altered, but her twelfth
birthday came while he was still in the vil-
lage, and the little gift he had found for her
occasioned such a demonstration of delight
as proved her still the child he had known,
and inspired a vague hope that Doris might
be the creature so often dreamed of—the
child who never grows older.

Perhaps it was this foolish hope that led
him to take a little of the beauty from a day
which had opened perfectly for her. At