How often had she come to him for a story, and he had been dull and preoccupied--with words; how often asked him to take her a walk up the lane, but he had been too busy--with words! O God, if only she might come and ask again.

Now when she was so far away his fancy teemed with stories.

Every roadside flower had its fairy-tale which cried, "Tell me to little Wonder"-- and once he tried to make believe to himself that Wonder was holding his hand, and looking up into his face with her big grave eyes, as he told some child's nonsense to the eternal hills.

He broke off--half in anger with himself.
Was he changing one illusion for another?
"Fool, no one hears you," and he threw himself face down in the grass and sobbed.
But a gentle hand was laid upon his shoulder and Beatrice's voice said,-- "I heard you, Antony--and loved you for it." So Antony had found the heart of a father when no longer he had a child..