s for the
unkindness of the scientific world, and Ethel Brown repeated the poem
beginning

"When beechen buds begin to swell,
And woods the blue-bird's warble know,
The yellow violet's modest bell
Peeps from last year's leaves below."

Dorothy went into ecstasies over the discovery of two roots of white
violets, but there seemed to be no others, though they all sought
diligently for the fragrant blossoms among the leaves.

A cry from Ethel Blue brought the others to a drier part of the field at
a distance from the brook. There in a patch of soil that was almost
sandy was a great patch of violets of palest hue, with deep orange eyes.
They were larger than any of the other violets and their leaves were
entirely different.

"What funny leaves," cried Dorothy. "They look as if some one had
crumpled up a real violet leaf and cut it from the edge to the stem into
a fine fringe."

"Turn it upside down and press it against the ground. Don't you think it
looks like a bird's claw?"

"So it does! This must be a 'bird-foot violet,'"

"It is, and there's more meaning in the name than in the one the yellow
bell suffers from. Do you suppose there are any violets up in the
woods?"

"They seem to fit in everywhere; I shouldn't be a bit surprised if there
were some there."

Sure enough, there were, smaller and darker in color than the flowers
down by the brook and hiding more shyly under their shorter-stemmed
leaves.

"Helen is going to have some trouble to make her garden fit the tastes
of all these different flowers," said Ethel Brown thoughtfully. "I don't
see how she's going to do it."

"Naturally it's sort of half way ground," replied Ethel Blue. "She can
enrich the part that is to hold the ones that like rich food and put
sand where these bird foot fellows are to go, and plant the wet-lovers
at the end where the hydrant is so that there'll be a temptation to give
them a sprinkle every time the hose is screwed on."

[Illustration: Blue Flag]

"The ground is always damp around the hydrant; I guess she'll manage to
please her new tenants."

"If only Mother can buy this piece of land," said Dorothy, "I'm going to
plant forget-me-nots and cow lilies and arum lilies right in the stream.
There are flags and pickerel weed and cardinals here already. It will
make a beautiful flower bed all the length of the field."

"I hope and hope every day that it will come out right," sighed Ethel
Blue. "Of cou