enuine emotion as she spoke. She would make them feel it too.

"It is a plant of the cactus family, as native to America as is Ashley's
peculiar sense of beauty which you won't acknowledge. It is as ugly to
look at, the plant is, all spines and thick, graceless, fleshy pads; as
ugly as Ashley life looks to you. And this crabbed, ungainly
plant-creature is faithfully, religiously tended all the year around by
the wife of a farmer, because once a year, just once, it puts forth a
wonderful exotic flower of extreme beauty. When the bud begins to show
its color she sends out word to all her neighbors to be ready. And we
are all ready. For days, in the back of our minds as we go about our
dull, routine life, there is the thought that the cereus is near to
bloom. Nelly and her grim husband hang over it day by day, watching it
slowly prepare for its hour of glory. Sometimes when they cannot decide
just the time it will open, they sit up all through a long night, hour
after hour of darkness and silence, to make sure that it does not bloom
unseen. When they see that it is about to open, they fling open their
doors, wishing above everything else to share that beauty with their
fellows. Their children are sent to announce, as you heard Toucle say
tonight, 'The cereus is going to bloom.' And all up and down this end of
the valley, in those ugly little wooden houses that look so mean and
dreary to you, everywhere people tired from their day's struggle with
the earth, rise up and go their pilgrimage through the night . . . for
what? To see something rare and beautiful."

She stopped speaking. On one side of her she heard the voice of the
older man say with a quiver, "Well, I can understand why your neighbors
love you."

With entire unexpectedness Marsh answered fiercely from the other side,
"_They_ don't love her! They're not capable of it!"

Marise started, as though a charged electric wire had fallen across her
arm. Why was there so often a note of anger in his voice?

For a moment they advanced silently, pacing forward, side by side,
unseen but not unfelt by each of the others.

The road turned now and they were before the little house, every window
alight, the great pine somber and high before it. The children and
Toucle were waiting at the door. They all went in together, shaking
hands with the mistress of the house, neatly dressed, with a clean,
white flounced apron. "Nelly's garment of ceremony!" thought Marise.

Nelly a