y had the gardener not made those mistakes.

Even now, it was lovely: lovely with a saddening loveliness, for one saw
at a glance how easily a breeze too rough could beat it down. And one
knew there had been those breezes. Every petal drooped.

A strange desire entered the heart of Katherine: a desire to see whether
those petals could take their curves again, whether a color which
blunders had faded could come back to its own. She was like the new
gardener eager to see whether he can redeem the mistakes of the old. And
the new gardener's zeal is not all for the flower; some of it is to show
what he can do, and much of it the true gardener's passion for
experiment. Katie Jones would have made a good gardener.

And yet it was something less cold than the experimenting instinct
tightened her throat as she looked at the frail figure of the girl for
whom life had been too much.

"I must go now," she was saying, with what seemed mighty effort to summon
all of herself over which she could get command. "You are all right now.
I must go."

But she sank back in the chair, as if that one thing left at the center
pulled her back, crying out that if it could but have a little more
time there--

The girl in blue linen was sitting at the feet of the girl in pink
organdie. She had hold of her hand, so slim a hand. Everything about the
girl was slim, built for favoring breezes.

"I have one thing more to ask." It was Kate's voice was not well
controlled this time.

"You may call it a whim, a notion, foolish notion; call it what you like,
but I want you to stay here to-night."

The girl was looking down at her, down into the upturned face, all light
and strength and purpose as one standing apart and disinterested might
view a spectacle. Slowly, comprehendingly, dispassionately she shook her
head. "It would be--no use."

"Perhaps," Katie acquiesced. "Some of the very nicest things in life
are--no use. But I have something planned. May I tell you what it is I
want to do?"

Still she did not take her eyes from Katie's kindling face, looking at it
as at something a long way off and foreign.

"I am not a philanthropist, have no fears of that. But I have an idea, a
theory, that what seem small things are perhaps the only things in life
to help the big things. For instance, a hot bath. I can't think of any
sorrow in the world that a hot bath wouldn't help, just a little bit."

"Now we have such a beautiful bathroom. I loathe hot