ng to the bursting point that flat little chest of his to take in
the delicious perfume. Thus for a while, and without speaking, they
dipped their heads, alternating, to the box.

Presently, Cis lifted the bouquet--almost with reverence. The cups of
the flowers were narrow, looked into from directly above, as if each
flower had just opened. And, oh, how young each seemed! and how
beautiful! When, in all the years since the tenement had been built, had
it sheltered such loveliness! Bravely enough the dark, smudgy kitchen,
with its scabby walls and its greasy, splintery floor, grew knots of
violets. But here were flowers not made by hands: flowers which had come
up out of the earth!--yet with a perfectness which was surely not of the
earth; certainly not, at any rate, of this particular corner of it
situated in the Lower East Side.

"My first roses!" Cis said. Her tone implied that they were not her
last.

"They're fine!" pronounced Johnnie, solemnly.

"_Fine?_ They're darling! They're precious! They look as if they'd just
come down from Heaven!" Out of the long, white box Cis now took a small,
square envelope. She handed it to Johnnie. "Open it, please," she bade,
and rather grandly, her air that of one who has been receiving boxes of
roses all her life. Then once more she buried that complimented nose
among her flowers.

The envelope was not sealed. That was because, Johnnie concluded, there
was no letter in it. What it contained was a narrow, stiff card. On the
card, written in ink, was "Many happy returns of the day!" This Johnnie
read aloud. "But there's no name," he complained. "So how d'y' know
these didn't come from One-Eye? I'll just bet they did! I'll----"

"Read the other side," advised Cis calmly. She fell to counting the
roses.

Over went the card. "Oh, yes; you're right--Mister Algernon Godfrey
Perkins, it says. Gee! but he must've spent a pile of money! And what
day's he talkin' about? How can a day return?"

"Your birthday can return--every year, the way Christmas does. To-day is
seventeen times my birthday has returned; and there's just seventeen
roses here. That's one for each year I've lived." She began to whisper
into the buds, touching in turn each pink chalice with her pink lips.
"This is the rose for the year I was one, and this is the rose for the
year I was two, and this is the rose----"

Johnnie proceeded, boylike, to acquire some intimate and practical
knowledge of her gift. He opened