whom the scent
and sight of a wild flower may bring some passing moment of peace.
Tell me, then, you who are so pure and lovely, will not you spare a
space of your slender life, that so you may make happy the heart of a
sorrowing one?"

Then the flower said, "Dear maiden, I will"; but inasmuch as it spake
not the maiden's language, it breathed forth all its perfume, like
sweet music, in consent. And, though the maiden knew not that the
flower had heard her words, and had answered her, yet at heart she was
strangely though sweetly saddened. "Even in heaven I should long for
the earth-flowers!" she said, as she drank in the fragrance. "Is there
anything, in all heaven, more fair than a flower?"

* * * * * *

Then the maiden plucked the flower, and bore it away from the birds and
the sunshine, away from the wind and the trees, to a squalid court in a
great city, where a dying woman lay, haggard and wan, upon a bed. And
as the flower looked into the soul of the dying woman, its fair leaves
seemed to wither and wilt, as though some foul breath had come forth
upon it, for therein it could see nothing because of the blackness and
the sin. And at first the flower shrank into itself, and would fain
have gathered up its perfume, but it thought of the prayer in the
maiden's heart, and, opening out its snowy petals to their full, it
breathed forth a fragrance which filled the foul room as with music and
light. And as the dying woman looked upon the flower, she thought of
the white lilies which she had gathered and placed upon her dead
mother's bosom--many, ah! so many weary years ago; and she thought of
the days when she too was pure and beautiful, and had knelt at that
mother's knee, to whisper, after her, the hallowed words to the Father
in heaven.

Then the flower saw that in the woman's heart there was some strange
and sudden commotion, as though the light were seeking to win in its
way, and to drive out the darkness and sin.

And, folding her wasted hands together, the dying woman turned to the
light, and said, "Dear Lord Jesus, make me--even me--white and pure as
this lily, and wash away all my sins in Thy precious blood. Amen."

And when the dawn came, the flower lay withered and drooping; but, ere
it died, it saw into the woman's heart that it was white and pure as
the snow-flake.

And there passed from that room a shining angel, _and lo! on her bosom
lay a little flower_.