ume. Grandmother
forbade digging in the flower-beds--it was all right to go into the
vegetable garden, but the tender flower-roots must not be exposed to
the sun by ruthless boy hands intent only on the quest of bait.

* * * * *

Into the lapel of my dress coat She fastened a delicate orchid last
night. It must have cost a pretty penny, at this season--enough, no
doubt, to buy the seeds that would reproduce a half-dozen of my
grandmother's gardens. And as we moved away in the limousine She asked
me why I was so silent. She could not know that when she slipped its
rare stem into place upon my coat, the long years dropped away--and I
stood again where the Yellow Rose, all thorn-covered, lifted its sunny
top above the picket fence--plucked its choicest blossom, put it almost
apologetically and ashamed into the buttonhole of my jacket--stuffed my
hands into my pockets and went whistling down the street, with the
yellow rose-tint and the sunlight and the curls on my child head all
shining in harmony. The first boutonniere of my life--from the bush
that became my confidant through all those wondrous years before they
packed my trunk and sent me off to college!

To be sure, I loved the bright-faced Pansies which smiled cheerily up
at me from their round bed--and the dear old Pinks, of a strange
fragrance all their own--and the Sweet William, and even the grewsome
Bleeding Heart that drooped so sad and forlorn in its alloted corner.
Yet it is significant that last night's orchid took me straight back
over memory's pathway to that simple yellow rosebush by the fence!

* * * * *

Tonight, with the forgotten orchid in my lapel, and all the weight of
the great struggle lying heavy against my heart, I stand where the
night-fog veils the scraggly eucalyptus, and the dense silence blots
out all the noises that have intervened between the Then and the
Now--and I can see again the gorgeous Peonies, pink and white, where
they toss their shaggy heads, and gather as of old the flaming Cock's
Comb by the little path. I hear the honeybees droning in the Crab Apple
tree by the back gate, and watch the robins crowding the branches of
the Mountain Ash, where the bright red berries cluster. I see the
terrible bumble-bee bear down the Poppy on its slender stem and go
buzzing threateningly away, all pollen-covered.

And shining clear and true through the mist I see her who was the
Spirit o