girl smiling bitterly over a few poor grasses, gathered
as we pluck them from a loved one's grave.

* * * * *

Catharine, the lodge-keeper, sat rocking her baby in the old porch
seat; through the open door one could catch glimpses of the bright
red-tiled kitchen with its wooden settle and the tortoise-shell cat
asleep on the great wicker chair; beyond, the sunny little herb-garden
with its plots of lavender, marjoram, and sweet-smelling thyme, the
last monthly roses blooming among the gooseberry bushes; a child
cliqueting up the narrow brick path with a big sun-bonnet and
burnished pail; in the corner a toy fountain gurgling over its
oyster-shell border, and a few superannuated ferns.

Catharine sat contentedly in the shady porch, on her lap lay the brown
baby with his face all puckered up with smiles; his tiny hole of a
mouth just opened ready for the small moist thumb, and his bare rosy
feet beating noiseless time to the birds; he was listening besides to
his mother's voice as she sat rocking him and talking unconsciously
aloud.

"'Heaven bless her!' she muttered, with a cloud on her pleasant face;
yes, those were her very words, as she stood like a picture under the
old trees yonder."

"'Heaven bless her and him too,'--but there was not a speck of color
in her face as she said the words, and I could see the tears in her
beautiful eyes. Oh, but you are a saint, Miss Margaret--every one
knows that; but, as I tell Martin, it is a sin and a shame to ring the
joy bells for a feckless chit that folk never set eyes on; while our
darling, Miss Margaret, is left alone in the old place."

"What about Margaret, Catharine, for Heaven's sake, what about
Margaret?" and the shadow that had come from behind the tamarisk hedge
now fell across the porch straight before the startled woman.

Catharine put down her apron from her eyes with something like a cry,
and stood up trembling.

"Good gracious! is that you, Miss Crystal? why, you come before one
like a flash of lightning on a summer's day, to make one palpitate all
over for fear of a storm."

"And about as welcome, I suppose," returned the young stranger,
bitterly, "my good Catharine, your simile is a wonderfully true one."

"I don't know naught about 'similies,' Miss Crystal, but I know you
are as welcome as the flowers in May. Come in--come in--my lamb, and
don't stand scorching your poor face in the sun; come in and I'll give
you Mart