ome in before;
that's why I'm not really in yet. It catches you by the throat and makes
you breathe funny. What is it, Esther?"

"Why--I don't know, Jane. It's loneliness I think--missing Dad."

The child shook her head. But whatever her objection might have been it
was beyond her power of expression. She slid off the veranda step and
wandered back into the garden. There was another apple in the pocket of
her apron, and apples are great comforters.

Left alone, Esther with a resolutely cheerful air took down a blue bowl
and proceeded to arrange therein the day's floral offerings. A sweet and
crushed mixture they were, pansies, clove-pinks, mignonette, bleeding
hearts, bachelors' buttons, all short stemmed and minus any saving touch
of green, but true love offerings for all that. Wordless gifts most of
them, prim little bunches, hot from tight clasping in chubby hands,
shyly and swiftly deposited on "Teacher's desk" when the back of that
divinity was turned. The blue bowl took kindly to them all, and as the
girl's clever fingers settled and arranged the glowing chaos it seemed
that with their crushed fragrance something of the lost spirit of the
room came back. Just so had she arranged hundreds of times the sweet
smelling miscellanies which had been her father's constant tribute from
grateful patients.

She had almost finished when the door opened to admit a little, grey
wisp of a woman with a mild white face and large faded eyes which might
once have been beautiful. She was dressed entirely in lavender, a
fondness for this colour being one of the many harmless fancies born of
a brain not quite normal. The rather expressionless face brightened at
sight of the girl by the table.

"Why, Esther--I didn't hear you come in. Have you put a mat under the
bowl? See now! You have marked the table."

Esther good humouredly reached for a table-mat, for the polish of this
particular article of furniture was the pride of Aunt Amy's life. "It's
all right, Auntie. It's not really a mark. Look, aren't they sweet? It
is like one of father's posies. Is mother any better?"

"The children must think a lot of you, Esther!"

"Yes, although I think they would bring flowers to any one, bless 'em!
Is mother--"

"Your mother hasn't been down all day. I went up with her dinner but she
didn't take any. She wouldn't answer."

"Auntie, don't you think she ought to do something about these
headaches?"

"I don't know, Esther. She'll be al