ey won't get her, either. That
makes me feel perfectly safe."

Jewel watched the speaker seriously. Mr. Evringham met her thoughtful eyes.

"Oh, they'll want you, Jewel. Don't you be afraid."

"I'm not afraid. How could I be? But I was just wondering whether you
didn't know that you'll have to do your own work, grandpa."

He looked up quickly and met Julia's shining eyes.

"Dear me," he responded, with an uncomfortable laugh. "Don't I get out of
it?"

The next morning when Jewel had driven back from the station, and she and
her mother had studied the day's lesson, they returned to the ravine,
taking the Story Book with them.

Before settling themselves to read, they counted the new wild flowers that
had unfolded, and Jewel sprinkled them and the ferns, from the brook.

"Did you ever see anybody look so pretty as Anna Belle does, in that
necklace?" exclaimed Jewel, fondly regarding her child, enthroned against
the snowy trunk of a little birch-tree. "It isn't going to be your turn to
choose the story this morning, dearie. Here, I'll give you a daisy to play
with."

"Wait, Jewel, I think Anna Belle would rather see it growing until we go,
don't you?"

"Would you, dearie? Yes, she says she would; but when we go, we'll take
the sweet little thing and let it have the fun of seeing grandpa's house
and what we're all doing."

"It seems such a pity, to me, to pick them and let them wither," said Mrs.
Evringham.

"Why, I think they only seem to wither, mother," replied Jewel hopefully.
"A daisy is an idea of God, isn't it?"

"Yes, dear."

"When one seems to wither and go out of sight, we only have to look around
a little, and pretty soon we see the daisy idea again, standing just as
white and bright as ever, because God's flowers don't fade."

"That's so, Jewel," returned the mother quietly.

The child drew a long breath. "I've thought a lot about it, here in the
ravine. At first I thought perhaps picking a violet might be just as much
error as killing a bluebird; and then I remembered that we pick the flower
for love, and it doesn't hurt it nor its little ones; but nobody ever
killed a bird for love."

Mrs. Evringham nodded.

"Now it's my turn to choose," began Jewel, in a different tone, settling
herself near the seat her mother had taken.

Mrs. Evringham opened the book and again read over the titles of the
stories.

"Let's hear 'The Apple Woman's Story,'" said Jewel, when she paused.

Her mother l