uses her, it doesn't
hurt me for her to pass me on the street without a word or a look. When a
thing like that has run along for years, it isn't easy to make any change."

"Oh, but it is so unchristian, so wrong," returned his sister. "If you only
had a loving enough feeling, Dick, it seems as if you might take her by
storm."

Mr. Badger smiled at some memory. "I tried once. She did the storming." He
shrugged his shoulders. "I'm a man of peace. I decided to let her alone."

Mrs. Wright shook her head. "Well, I haven't told Hazel anything about it.
She knows she is named for my aunt; but she doesn't know where aunt Hazel
lives, and I wish you would warn Hannah not to tell the child anything
about her or the affair. You know we lay a great deal of stress on not
voicing discord of my kind."

"Yes, I know," Mr. Badger smiled and nodded. 'Your methods seem to have
turned out a mighty nice little girl, and it's been a wonder to me ever
since I came, to see you going about, such a different creature from what
you used to be."

"Yes, I'm well and happy," returned Mrs. Wright, "and I long to have this
trouble between you and aunt Hazel at an end. I suppose Hazel isn't likely
to come in contact with her at all."

"No, indeed; no more than if aunt Hazel lived in Kamschatka. She does, if
it's cold enough there."

"Dear woman. She ignored the last two letters I wrote her, I suppose
because I sided with you."

"Oh, certainly, that would be an unpardonable offense. Hannah tells me she
has a crippled child visiting her now, the daughter of some friends. Hannah
persists in keeping an eye on aunt Hazel's affairs, and telling me about
them. Hannah will be pleased to have little Hazel to make a pet of for a
few weeks."

He was right. The housekeeper was charmed. She did everything to make Hazel
feel at home in her uncle's house, and discovering that the little girl had
a passion for flowers, let her make a garden bed of her own. Hazel went
with her uncle to buy plants for this, and she had great fun taking
geraniums and pansies out of their pots and planting them in the soft brown
earth of the round garden plot; and every day blue-eyed Ella, her doll, sat
by and watched Hazel pick out every little green weed that had put its head
up in the night.

"You're only grass, dearie," she would say to one as she uprooted it, "and
grass is all right most everywhere; but this is a garden, so run away."

Not very far down the street was a