erself.

When the spring came she took up her trowel and followed Aunt Lydia into
the garden. On bright mornings the two would work side by side among the
flowers, kneeling in a row with the small darkies who came to their
assistance. Peter, the gardener, would watch them lazily, as he leaned upon
his hoe, and mutter beneath his breath, "Dat dut wuz dut, en de dut er de
flow'r baids warn' no better'n de dut er de co'n fiel'."

Betty would laugh and shake her head as she planted her square of pansies.
She was working feverishly to overcome her longing for the sight of Dan,
and her growing dread of his return.

But at last on a sunny morning, when the lilacs made a lane of purple to
the road, the Major drove over with the news that "the boys would not be
back again till autumn. They'll go abroad for the summer," he added
proudly. "It's time they were seeing something of the world, you know. I've
always said that a man should see the world before thirty, if he wants to
stay at home after forty," then he smiled down on Virginia, and pinched her
cheek. "It won't hurt Dan, my dear," he said cheerfully. "Let him get a
glimpse of artificial flowers, that he may learn the value of our own
beauties."

"Of Great-aunt Emmeline, you mean, sir," replied Virginia, laughing.

"Oh, yes, my child," chuckled the Major. "Let him learn the value of
Great-aunt Emmeline, by all means."

When the old gentleman had gone, Betty went into the garden, where the
grass was powdered with small spring flowers, and gathered a bunch of white
violets for her mother. Aunt Lydia was walking slowly up and down in the
mild sunshine, and her long black shadow passed over the girl as she knelt
in the narrow grass-grown path. A slender spray of syringa drooped down
upon her head, and the warm wind was sweet with the heavy perfume of the
lilacs. On the whitewashed fence a catbird was calling over the meadow, and
another answered from the little bricked-up graveyard, where the gate was
opened only when a fresh grave was to be hollowed out amid the periwinkle.

As Betty knelt there, something in the warm wind, the heavy perfume, or the
old lady's flitting shadow touched her with a sudden melancholy, and while
the tears lay upon her lashes, she started quickly to her feet and looked
about her. But a great peace was in the air, and around her she saw only
the garden wrapped in sunshine, the small spring flowers in bloom, and Aunt
Lydia moving up and down in th