Four or five withered dandelions.

Other dried vegetation, of a nature now indistinguishable.

William gazed reverently upon this junk of precious souvenirs; then
from the inner pocket of his coat he brought forth, warm and crumpled,
a lumpish cluster of red geranium blossoms, still aromatic and not quite
dead, though naturally, after three hours of such intimate confinement,
they wore an unmistakable look of suffering. With a tenderness which
his family had never observed in him since that piteous day in his fifth
year when he tried to mend his broken doll, William laid the geranium
blossoms in the cardboard box among the botanical and other relics.

His gentle eyes showed what the treasures meant to him, and yet it
was strange that they should have meant so much, because the source of
supply was not more than a quarter of a mile distant, and practically
inexhaustible. Miss Pratt had now been a visitor at the Parchers'
for something less than five weeks, but she had made no mention of
prospective departure, and there was every reason to suppose that she
meant to remain all summer. And as any foliage or anything whatever that
she touched, or that touched her, was thenceforth suitable for William's
museum, there appeared to be some probability that autumn might see it
so enlarged as to lack that rarity in the component items which is the
underlying value of most collections.

William's writing-table was beside an open window, through which came an
insistent whirring, unagreeable to his mood; and, looking down upon the
sunny lawn, he beheld three lowly creatures. One was Genesis; he was
cutting the grass. Another was Clematis; he had assumed a transient