low
and blue.

"Blue?" Rawson-Clew's interest became more real; he had once heard of
blue in connection with a daffodil. It was one evening on a long flat
Dutch road--the evening he had tied Julia's shoe. She had spoken of
it, she had begun to say, when he stopped the confession that he
thought she would afterwards regret, that she could not take the blue
daffodil.

"What is the name?" he asked; he meant of the grower in Norfolk,
though he would have been puzzled to say why he asked.

Miss Farham, however, mistook his meaning and thought he was asking
about the flower. "'The Good Comrade,'" she said, and fortunately she
did not see his surprise. "Rather quaint, is it not?" she went on.
"Easier to remember, too, than some obscure grand duchess, or the name
of the grower or his wife after whom new flowers are usually called.
The blue daffodil, you know, is called after one of the grower's
relatives--Vrouw Van Heigen."

Rawson-Clew said "Yes," though he did not know it before. It struck
him as interesting now; the Van Heigens had a blue daffodil then, and
Julia went to them for some purpose besides earning a pittance as
companion. She had not taken a blue daffodil; she said so; she also
said at another time she had failed in the object of her coming and
that failure and success would have been alike discreditable. Poor
Julia! And now here was some one in Norfolk exhibiting a daffodil of
mixed blue and yellow called, by a strange coincidence, "The Good
Comrade." Of course, it was only a coincidence and yet, when reason is
not helping as much as it ought, one is inclined to take notice of
signs and coincidences.

"What is the name of the grower of this new flower?" Rawson-Clew
asked.

Miss Farham told him.

"Snooks," he repeated thoughtfully; she imagined he was trying to
remember if he had heard the name before. He was not; he was wondering
if any one ever really started in life with such a name; if, rather,
it did not sound more like the pseudonym of one who was indifferent to
public credence, and possibly public opinion.

Rawson-Clew was not able to tell Miss Farham anything about the grower
of the streaked daffodil; he was obliged to own that he had never
heard of her before. But he made it his business to find out what he
could in the shortest possible time; this he did not mention to Miss
Farham. What he discovered did not amount to much, very little in
fact, but such as it was, it was enough to bring him t