"A lock of my hair," she said, looking eager,
but a little embarrassed; and she actually perched on the rim of the
pool while Sara unwrapped it, so that she might see whether or not she
was pleased. But I do not need to tell you that Sara was; for it was
one of her loveliest tail-feathers, a rich, curling plume of the
deepest rose, from which sweet odors were shaken out as Sara lifted it
to the light. Weeks afterward, when Sara astonished her mother by
begging for the pink plume on her prettiest hat, what she was really
pining for was a lock of the Plynck's hair.
Avrillia came next with her present. It was a little urn of jade and
ivory, and it was full to the top of dried poems written on
rose-leaves. Have you ever seen the quaint rose-jars some
old-fashioned ladies have in their parlors? Well, some one of them,
when she was little, saw one of Avrillia's poem-jars; and she made
these others in a homesick effort to imitate it. And the
fragrance--like nothing else you ever smelled--is the perfume of
Avrillia's poems, as nearly as that little old-fashioned lady, after
she grew up, could remember it.
You would not expect me to remember all of the presents Sara got that
day. But a good many I can remember. Pirlaps brought her a picture he
had painted; a very beautiful view of Nothing from Avrillia's balcony.
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