never did, but I read about it."

"Where is it to be bought?" Miss Fletcher was really interested now,
because flowers were her hobby.

"In the story it says at the Public Garden; but I've been to the Public
Garden in Boston, and I never saw any I thought were as beautiful as
yours."

Hazel was not trying to win Miss Fletcher's heart, but she had found the
road to it.

The care-lined face regarded her more closely than ever. "I don't remember
you. I thought I knew all the children around here."

"No 'm. I'm a visitor. I live in Boston; and we have a flat and of course
there isn't any yard, and I think your garden is perfectly beautiful. I
come to see it every day, and it's fun to stand out here and count the
smells."

Miss Fletcher's face broke into a smile. It did really seem as if it
cracked, because her lips had been set in such a tight line. "It ain't very
often children like flowers unless they can pick them," she replied. "I
can't sleep nights sometimes, wishing my garden wasn't so near the fence."

The little girl smiled and pointed to a climbing rose that had strayed from
its trellis, and one pink flower that was poking its pretty little face
between the pickets. "See that one," she said. "I think it wanted to look
up and down the street, don't you?"

"And you didn't gather it," returned Miss Fletcher, looking at Hazel
approvingly. "Well, now, for anybody fond of flowers as you are, I think
that was real heroic."

"She belongs to nice folks," she decided mentally.

"Oh, it was a tame flower," returned the child, "and that would have been
error. If it had been a wild one I would have picked it."

"Error, eh?" returned Miss Fletcher, and again her thin lips parted in a
smile. "Well, I wish everybody felt that way."

"Uncle Dick lets me have a garden," said Hazel. "He let me buy geraniums
and pansies and lemon verbena--I love that, don't you?"

"Yes. I've got a big plant of it back here. Wouldn't you like to come in
and see it?"

"Oh, thank you," returned Hazel, her gray eyes sparkling; and Miss
Fletcher felt quite a glow of pleasure in seeing the happiness she was
conferring by the invitation. Most of her friends took her garden as a
matter of course; and smiled patronizingly at her devotion to it.

In a minute the little girl had run to the gate in the white fence, and,
entering, joined the mistress of the house, who stood beside the
flourishing plants blooming in all their summer loveliness.