"I don't remember where each thing was in grandmother's garden." I
moved my chair a little closer to her cot. "But I remember the
gooseberry-bushes were just behind a long bed of lilies-of-the-valley.
It seemed so queer they should be together."

"Lilies of the valley grow anywhere. Mother's bed got bigger every
year. There was a large circle of them around a mound in the middle of
our garden, and they were fringed with violets. One February our
minister's wife died. They didn't have any flowers, and it seemed so
dreadful not to have any that I went into the garden to see if I
couldn't find something. The ground was covered with snow, but the
week before had been warm, and, going to one of the beds, I brushed the
snow away and found a lot of white violets. They were blooming under
the snow. I pulled them and took them to the minister, and he put them
in her hands. They used to put flowers in people's hands when they
were dead. I don't know whether they do it now or not."

"Sometimes it is done." I took up the sewing an my lap and made a few
stitches. "Tell me some more of your mother's garden. Did she have
winter pinks and bachelor's buttons and snap-dragons and hollyhocks in
it? I used to hate grandmother's hollyhocks. They were so haughty."

"We did not have any, but we had bridal-wreath and spirea and a big
pomegranate-bush. There were two large oleanders in tubs at the foot
of the front steps. One was mine, the other was my sister's. My
sister is married now and lives out West. She has two children."

A bird on the bough of the apple-tree began to twitter. For a moment
Lillie listened, then again she looked at me, in her eyes that which I
had noticed several times before, a look of torturing fear and pain and