cy might tell Caroline to snip off the bloom and
give it to her. But no one spoke of plants. Her breath quickened
chokingly, and her heart swelled and made her sick. Suddenly she rose
and threw her shawl about her in wild haste.

"I must go," she trembled; but at the door Lucy stayed her.

"Hetty," she called. Her voice faltered, and her eyes looked soft under
wistful brows. "Hetty!"

Hetty was waiting, in a tremor of suspense.

"Well," she answered, her voice beating upon the word. "What is it?"

Still Lucy spoke with diffidence, as she always did when she touched
upon her faith.

"I was only thinkin'--I dunno 's I can tell you, Hetty--but what you
said yesterday, you know, about not believin' there's any God--I was
goin' to ask you who you think made the trees an' flowers."

Hetty did not answer. She stood there, her hands trembling underneath
her shawl. She gripped them, one upon the other, to keep from stretching
them for alms.

"Well," she answered harshly. "Well!"

"Well," said Lucy gently, "that's all."

Hetty laughed out stridently.

"I'm goin' over to Mis' Flood's," said she, her hand upon the latch.

"They've driv' over to Fairfax to spend the day," volunteered Caroline.
"Better by half set here."

"Then I'm goin' over to Ballard's." She fled down the road so fast that
Caroline, watching her compassionately, remarked that she "looked, as if
she's sent for," and Lucy said, like a charm, a phrase of the Lord's
Prayer.

Hetty looked up at the Floods' and groaned, remembering there were
plants within. She spoke aloud, satirically:--

"Mebbe I could be the instrument o' the Lord. Mebbe if I climbed into
the winder, an' stole a bloom, I could say He give it to me."

But she went on, and hurried up the path to the little one-story house
where the Ballards lived. Grandsir was by the fire, pounding walnuts in
a little wooden mortar, to make a paste for his toothless jaws, and
little 'Melia, a bowl of nuts before her, sat in a high chair at the
table, lost in reckless greed. Her doll, forgotten, lay across a corner
of the table, in limp abandon, the buttonholed eyes staring nowhere.
Grandsir spoke wheezingly:--

"We're keepin' house, 'Melia an' me. We thought we'd crack us a few
nuts. Help yourself, Hetty."

'Melia lifted her bowl with two fat hands, and held it out, tiltingly.
Her round blue eyes shone in a painstaking hospitality. She was a good
little 'Melia.

"No, dear, you set it down. I do