For a moment, Rhett just watched the young woman before him. Could this truly be his little girl? Is this how Bonnie would have looked, if she had lived to grow up?

And was God really so good as to let him get a glimpse of her, if it was?

Very little of the baby Bonnie remained in her face. Her features were Scarlett's—Scarlett's to the life—save her fine browned skin, which was Rhett's, and her strikingly blue eyes, which were hers alone. The girl smiled, and there was that gap he remembered, slight, between her two front teeth. She was altogether charming and full of spirit as he remembered, but there was a placidity to her bearing now that she had not had time to grow into in life. She sat like a queen, her blue velvet skirts—just the same color as her eyes—spread out around her. Rhett made a low choking sound in his throat. He wanted to believe—and yet he couldn't, couldn't.

As if Bonnie could sense his unease, she said, in a low, meaningful tone,

"Daddy—where you been?"

It was so like she used to ask of him that Rhett felt, quite despite himself, his eyes well with tears. He crossed to her, where she sat, and took her dear little face in his hands, studying it, memorizing it, for the long dark time that should follow whenever this moment was over.

"Hunting for a rabbit skin," he murmured, his arms tight around her. "To wrap my little Bonnie in."

Father and daughter embraced a long while. When Rhett pulled back his eyes were bleary, and his face, he could feel, was wet with tears.

"You're so changed, Bonnie," he told her, with awe in his voice. "You're so much older. I never thought I'd see you as a grown-up girl."

Bonnie smiled, and tossed her black curls. "Beyond there is no age," she said. "Sometimes I am a baby, still, Daddy—sometimes I am a very old woman. But this is the age I like best. I think I would have liked—very much—to be a young, pretty girl. To be your young, pretty girl."

Rhett could hardly speak through the lump in his throat. "I would have liked that, too. How—how are you, Bonnie? Are you—well—there? Is it a nice—place, 'Beyond?'"

"Oh, yes," she breathed. "It is the nicest place of all." She flicked her skirts, and Rhett saw that what he had taken for an ordinary gown was instead a riding habit. "I have a snow-white charger and I ride all the time—I can go fast as the wind and high as the moon. And there are never any accidents."

"I'm glad, darling," Rhett said. "Oh, honey, I'm so glad. Bonnie—Bonnie—I've blamed myself for what happened to you. If I hadn't been so heedless—perhaps you would be alive, now. Perhaps you would get to be this young pretty girl, one day—really get to be her."

"Everyone blames themselves for what happened to me," said Bonnie, a mournful note in her bright tone. "You do—and Mother does."

"No," Rhett said. He was remembering Scarlett's words to him, as Dr. Meade bent over Bonnie's crumpled form, so still and white on the bed. You killed my baby. You killed her. "Your mother certainly does not blame herself."

"Doesn't she?" Bonnie said, slanting her eyes at him.

"I am sure she doesn't," Rhett said, but as he was saying it, he was suddenly unsure. He remembered so little from those days after Bonnie had died, but he did remember, like something in a dream, hearing Scarlett's wails filter down the hallway from her room as he held Bonnie's cooling body in his arms. I couldn't stop her. I couldn't stop her in time. What have I done, Melanie? What have I done?

"She shouldn't blame herself," Rhett said, gruffly. "I let you ride too fast, Bonnie. I encouraged you to be reckless."

Bonnie had taken his face in her hands.

"Nobody had to encourage me to be reckless," she said, pityingly. "Poor Daddy—to blame yourself. For what? I lived only a short while, yes—but my life was the happiest a girl could ever have."

Rhett buried his face in her skirts and let her pet his hair. "Daddy—dear Daddy." But then she stopped her stroking, and Rhett lifted his face to meet her worried eyes.

"What's wrong, darling? Are you happy, Bonnie? Is—is there such a thing as happiness for you?"

"I'm happy sometimes," she said. "But Daddy—I'm not happy at what's happened with you and Mother. It breaks my heart, darling—what you've done."

"What I've done, Bonnie?"

"Yes—leaving Mother all by herself, just at the time she needed you most."

"Your Mother doesn't need anybody but herself."

"Oh, but she does," Bonnie told him. "And you need her, too, Daddy."

Rhett did not know how to explain to her. He was used to talking to Bonnie as a little girl, and found he could not break the habit, no matter how old she appeared before him. "There wasn't enough love left," he said, haltingly. "Not for us, Bonnie. Not after you went."

She laughed, a tinkling sound, and turned back to her mirror. Rhett followed her gaze, but instead of her reflection, he saw a scene within the mirror, at first still like a painting. But then the scene came to life, and grew larger, and stronger, in the glass. He was looking at the Peachtree street parlor, in miniature, in Bonnie's mirror. Decked out for Christmas, some other Christmas, with the lights blazing, and everything so merry and bright that it must be real. Ella was sitting at the piano, plinking away and warbling in a surprisingly rich voice, while somewhere else close by Wade was singing, too.

Scarlett appeared, looking plumper and happier than she had been when he had seen her before. She was dressed fashionably, but demurely, her hair not frizzled and crimped but drawn back in a low sleek knot at the nape of her neck. Rhett heard his own voice, calling her name, and a second later, he appeared next to Scarlett in the scene.

"There you are!" cried Scarlett, catching sight of him.

Rhett crossed to his wife and he kissed her, and she turned to reveal a small little girl in her arms. Rhett drew in his breath to see her. She was so like Bonnie, except her hair was red—the very shade his own mother's had been. Rhett-in-the-glass kissed the little girl. "Daddy, where you been?" she lisped, in a voice so like Bonnie's, except it was her own. "Hunting for a lambie skin, to wrap my little Melly in…"

Rhett jerked forward, impulsively, to touch the image, but it disappeared, and the glass reflected only his own stunned face.

"Bonnie," he whispered, shocked, horrified, enthralled. "Bonnie—what was that? What was it?"

"You say there's not enough love," Bonnie said, in her bell-like voice. "There is enough so that what you saw could be—if you would only go and find it."

"You're playing tricks on me, Bonnie," Rhett reproached her. "It isn't very nice."

The girl shrugged, and picked up her hairbrush again. "Would you like to see another scene?" she asked him. "You don't want to see what can be—would you like to see what will be, if you do not change your course?"

Without waiting for an answer, she turned back to the mirror. The parlor at Peachtree street, again—but this time it was Scarlett and Ashley he saw, very small, in the glass.

"Behold Christmas future," said Bonnie, as the mirror came to life again.