There lay the cause on the desk before him--a little nosegay of wild Californian myrtle encircling a rose-bud which had escaped his notice.
There was nothing unusual in the circumstance.

The children were in the habit of making their offerings generally without particular reference to time or occasion, and it might have been overlooked by him during school-hours.

He felt a pity for the forgotten posy already beginning to grow limp in its neglected solitude.

He remembered that in some folk-lore of the children's, perhaps a tradition of the old association of the myrtle with Venus, it was believed to be emblematic of the affections.

He remembered also that he had even told them of this probable origin of their superstition.