', 'cepts when father has got work, then father
has a bloater. Me and mother have one too, sometimes, then.
But when father is out of work we only has bread."

Patience turned pale, and Thomas groaned. Jessie looked up with
quick sympathy. "Have you hurted your toof, granp?" she asked
gravely, little dreaming that it was she herself who had given him
pain.

"No, my dear, granp's all right. Try and make a good breakfast now.
You've got to get as plump and round as the kitten over there."

Patience had laid down her knife and fork, and sat staring before her
with miserably troubled eyes. "It seems wrong to be eating, when--
when there's others--one's own, too--going hungry!"

"Nonsense now," said Thomas gruffly; "don't 'ee talk like that,
mother, it's foolish. We've got to think of ourselves and those
about us, and it's our duty to eat and drink and be sensible, whether
we likes it or not." He spoke gruffly, because he felt that if he
spoke in any other way, he or Patience would break down.

Jessie came to their help, though. "My rose is nearly out, granp,"
she announced proudly, as soon as she was able to lift her thoughts
from the wonderful experience of having an egg _and_ bacon for
breakfast. "I saw it all showing pink. I expect by the time we've
finished our breakfases it will be right wide out. You come up and
see too, will you?"

And sure enough when breakfast was really done, she took his hand in
hers and led him up and into the room he had shunned so long.

"I don't think it will be full out until to-morrow," he decided; but
Jessie couldn't help thinking he had made a mistake, and many times
that day she climbed the stairs to see, and was quite troubled when
at last she had to go to bed, for fear the bud would open while her
eyes were shut.

"I think it is a very slow rose," she said, shaking her head sagely
as her granny was undressing her. "I am sure it _ought_ to have been
out by this time."

And then, after all her watching, the bud burst into full bloom
before Jessie was awake the next morning. When she opened her eyes
and saw it she felt quite vexed. "I wish I had put you back in a
dark corner," she said to it, "then you wouldn't have opened till I
was awake."

"The little maid is a born gardener," chuckled her grandfather, when
he was told of it; "'tis the folk that talks to their flowers that
gets the best out of them."

"If talking'll do it, her rose-bush will be covered thic