I saw her lips quiver, saw her teeth bitten into them to hide their
quivering, and I nodded to Mrs. Mundy to go inside, and I, too, left
her for a moment and went down the steps to the little garden being
made ready for the coming of spring. Around the high fence vines had
been planted, a trellis or two put against the porch for roses and
clematis, and close to the gate an apple-tree, twisted and gnarled,
gave promise of blossoms, if not of fruit. Already I loved the garden
which was to be.

"Violets are to be here and tulips there," I said, under my breath, and
wondered if Lillie were herself again, if I could not go back. "A row
of snowdrops and bleeding-hearts would look lovely there--" Something
green and growing in a sheltered corner near the house caught my eye,
and stooping, I pulled the little blossom, and went up the steps to
Lillie's cot and gave it to her.

Eagerly she held out her hands and the silence of days was broken. The
bitterness that had filled her eyes, the scorn that had drawn her thin
lips into forbidding curves, the mask of control which had exhausted
her strength, yielded at the sight of a little brown-and-yellow flower,
and with a cry she kissed it, pressed it to her face.

"It used to grow, a long bed of it, close to the kitchen wall where it
was warm, and where it bloomed before anything else." The words came
stumblingly. "Mother loved it best of all her flowers; she had all
sorts in her garden."

With a quick turn of her head she looked at me, in her face horror, in
her eyes tumultuous pain, then threw the flower from her with a wild
movement, as if her touch had blighted it. "Why don't you let me die!"