by late roses that August. The little house folk lived much in it, and
were given to taking picnic suppers in the grassy corner beyond the
brook and sitting about in it through the twilights when great night
moths sailed athwart the velvet gloom. One evening Owen Ford found
Leslie alone in it. Anne and Gilbert were away, and Susan, who was
expected back that night, had not yet returned.

The northern sky was amber and pale green over the fir tops. The air
was cool, for August was nearing September, and Leslie wore a crimson
scarf over her white dress. Together they wandered through the little,
friendly, flower-crowded paths in silence. Owen must go soon. His
holiday was nearly over. Leslie found her heart beating wildly. She
knew that this beloved garden was to be the scene of the binding words
that must seal their as yet unworded understanding.

"Some evenings a strange odor blows down the air of this garden, like a
phantom perfume," said Owen. "I have never been able to discover from
just what flower it comes. It is elusive and haunting and wonderfully
sweet. I like to fancy it is the soul of Grandmother Selwyn passing on
a little visit to the old spot she loved so well. There should be a
lot of friendly ghosts about this little old house."

"I have lived under its roof only a month," said Leslie, "but I love it
as I never loved the house over there where I have lived all my life."

"This house was builded and consecrated by love," said Owen. "Such
houses, MUST exert an influence over those who live in them. And this
garden--it is over sixty years old and the history of a thousand hopes
and joys is written in its blossoms. Some of those flowers were
actually set out by the schoolmaster's bride, and she has been dead for
thirty years. Yet they bloom on every summer. Look at those red
roses, Leslie--how they queen it over everything else!"

"I love the red roses," said Leslie. "Anne likes the pink ones best,
and Gilbert likes the white. But I want the crimson ones. They
satisfy some craving in me as no other flower does."

"These roses are very late--they bloom after all the others have
gone--and they hold all the warmth and soul of the summer come to
fruition," said Owen, plucking some of the glowing, half-opened buds.

"The rose is the flower of love--the world has acclaimed it so for
centuries. The pink roses are love hopeful and expectant--the white
roses are love dead or forsaken--but t