"Isn't it so--anywhere?"

"I reckon not. Death and pain pay for all good things."

She hoed away silently, hesitating over the choice of the plants,
pondering this world-old truth, saddened by its ruthless cruelty.

"Death and pain," she murmured; "what a price!"

Bles leaned on his hoe and considered. It had not occurred to him till
now that Zora was speaking better and better English: the idioms and
errors were dropping away; they had not utterly departed, however, but
came crowding back in moments of excitement. At other times she clothed
Miss Smith's clear-cut, correct speech in softer Southern accents. She
was drifting away from him in some intangible way to an upper world of
dress and language and deportment, and the new thought was pain to him.

So it was that the Fleece rose and spread and grew to its wonderful
flowering; and so these two children grew with it into theirs. Zora
never forgot how they found the first white flower in that green and
billowing sea, nor her low cry of pleasure and his gay shout of joy.
Slowly, wonderfully the flowers spread--white, blue, and purple bells,
hiding timidly, blazing luxuriantly amid the velvet leaves; until one
day--it was after a southern rain and the sunlight was twinkling through
the morning--all the Fleece was in flower--a mighty swaying sea,
darkling rich and waving, and upon it flecks and stars of white and
purple foam. The joy of the two so madly craved expression that they
burst into singing; not the wild light song of dancing feet, but a low,
sweet melody of her fathers' fathers, whereunto Alwyn's own deep voice
fell fitly in minor cadence.