doesn't make much difference."

"East and west, then," I answered, calmly, though my hand clenched over
the hollyhock seeds which I had put in an envelope in the pocket of my
corduroy skirt. It was cruelly thoughtless of him--this selection of the
lilacs for the corner-stones of the garden after making me so happy, not
a month ago, with that lovely sentiment about wanting to plant the
hollyhock seeds first in memory of the dolls of our youth. "Peter will
enjoy looking down the rows from the living-room window better than
across them," I added, quickly, for fear he would humiliate me by
remembering that he had forgotten the hollyhock seeds he had stolen for
me.

"Say where and I'll dig for you," he said; but I saw a glint of
something fairly shoot from his eyes.

"Here," I said, and stood at a nice right angle from the corner of the
house and the old cedar-tree he had said he could nail the wires to to
save a post, when he had to put up a fence.

He came over promptly with the spade and poised it to dig into the
ground--and my heart.

Then he hesitated, and looked at me quickly for a second. Then he threw
down the spade and said, quietly:

"I'll go get that rotted stump dirt before I break ground for the
lilacs, and you can think about things while you wait." With that he
lifted the wheelbarrow and trundled out of the situation, leaving me in
the depths of a hurt uncertainty.