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“Well, it left ‘nor mark nor burn’, child,” chaffed her father, catching the hand and examining it, too. “Bah! Some boy playing a trick on you—playing on a Jew’s harp! Don’t go into the wood again so—early—”

“It wasn’t! It wasn’t!” Passionately the vine tore itself from its pedestal and maintained its own independent conviction.

But as Una caught the cloud, the vague cloud, descending again upon her father’s face, her soft flower-heart capitulated.

“Well! all right, Daddy, if you want me to think that, I will—I’ll try to,” she pledged. “You’re the dearest prince of a father ever was—and I wouldn’t exchange you even for Pemrose’s Wizard,” with a little moue, a little grimace in the direction of the other girl, who had turned aside and was looking out through the plateglass panels towards the mountains.

“There—I haven’t done your hair this morning, yet.”

Una pressed her father into a low wicker chair, perched upon his knee and began twisting the dark, graying locks around her finger.

Pemrose, over her shoulder, watched them smilingly. She had no cause for envy, she who wore a Wizard’s ring.