ick. She coughs an' coughs, and den she lays on
de bed long whiles."

"And she likes flowers?"

"Yes, ma'am; me an' Biddy picked a bowkay outen a ashba'l oncet, an'
me mudder sticked it in a tumbler an' loved it. Come, Biddy, make de
lady a bow!" Upon which the small Chesterfield stood off a few steps
and gave an absurd little bob of a bow which Biddy gravely endeavoured
to imitate.

"I think I'll go with you," said Olivia, open-minded as ever to a new
interest; and hand in hand and chattering amicably, the three moved
across the turf and down the long gravel walk to the dusty street.
Surprising how short the distance was between the sweet seclusion of
the old tennis-court and the squalid quarter where these little human
blossoms grew!

Olivia was thinking of that as she stood on the veranda an hour later,
looking down upon the flowery kingdom to which all her interest and
ambition had been pledged. Yes, it was lovely, lovely in the long
afternoon light, and it would have been lovelier still with the
gleaming marble she had dreamed of. She really tried to keep her mind
upon it, to forget the little drama over there in the stuffy tenement.
But no; she was too good a gardener for that. Was not a whole family
broken and wilting for lack of means to transplant it?

The doctor had ordered Mrs. O'Trannon to Colorado, and Mike had
dropped his work as "finisher"--whatever that might be--and had gone
out to prepare the way for the others to follow. He had found no
chance to work at his trade, but he had got a job on a ranch, where
the pay was small, but the living good. A fine place it would be for
the invalid and the children, when once he could get together the
money to send for them. But meanwhile here they were, and the winter
coming on.

As Olivia stood looking down upon her beloved garden, she could not
seem to see anything but brown stalks and dead blossoms. All that
lavish colour looked fictitious and transitory; she had somehow lost
faith in it.

Mrs. O'Trannon had been pleased with the flowers; she had grown up on
a farm, she said. Sure she never'd ha' got sick at all if she'd ha'
stayed where she belonged. But then, where would Mike have been, and
the babies? And where would Mike be, and the babies, Olivia thought
with a pang,--where would they be if the mother wilted and died? She
turned, suddenly, and passed in at the glass doors and on to her
father's study.

At sight of the kind, quizzical face lifted