ustled by the
ruder foliage which had grown up about them that they stood like
captives in the midst of a rabble, broken-hearted and dumb; with some
pushing he made his way within, and followed the lost path. It brought
him to a mound of tangled shrubbery which rose like a small hill at this
end of the garden, decked here and there, in what seemed inaccessible
places, with brilliant flowers. But the places had not been inaccessible
to Torres. Winthrop met him returning from the thorny conflict with a
magnificent stalk of blossoms which he had captured there, and was now
bringing back in triumph; it was a long wand of gorgeous spurred bells,
each two inches in length, crimson without, cream-color within, the lip
of the flaring lower petal lined with purple, and spotted with gold.
Torres carried his prize to Garda, and offered it in silence. She
thanked him prettily in Spanish, and he stood beside her, his dark face
in a dull glow from pleasure.

"Perhaps it is poisonous," murmured Manuel, taking good care, however,
to murmur in English.

"Oh, my dearest child! pray put it down," said Mrs. Thorne, anxiously.

"It is quite harmless," said the clergyman, "I know the family to which
it belongs. It is not indigenous here; probably the original shrub was
planted in the garden many years ago, and has run wild."

Garda took the stalk in her right hand, extended her left rigidly, and,
stiffening her light figure in a wooden attitude, looked meekly upward.

"Bravo! bravo!" said the Doctor from his well-curb, laughing, and
beginning on a second orange.

She stood thus for a few instants only. But it was very well done--an
exact copy of a dark, grim old picture in the little Spanish cathedral
of Gracias, a St. Catherine with a stalk of lilies in her hand.

Winthrop, who had returned, was standing on the other side of the open
space. Apparently he had not noticed this little pantomime. Garda looked
at him for a moment. Then she left her place, went across, and gravely
decorated him with her stalk of blossoms, the large stem going through
three of the button-holes of his coat before it could hold itself
firmly; the brilliant flowers extended diagonally across his breast,
past his chin, and above one ear.

"Your hat will break the top buds," said Garda, surveying her handiwork.
"Please take it off."

He obeyed. "For what sacrifice am I thus adorned?" he asked.

"It's no sacrifice," answered Garda, "it's a rebellion--a rebell