"The horrible idea that the speaker might possibly have the power to
enforce his sentence diverted my attention from the slate, and I looked
round. In front of the Jack-in-a-box stood a tiny red flower-pot and
saucer, in which was a miniature cactus. My thoughts flew back to a
bazaar in London where, years ago, a stand of these fairy plants had
excited my warmest longings, and where a benevolent old gentleman whom
I had not seen before, and never saw again, bought this one and gave it
to me. Vague memories of his directions for repotting and tending it
reproached me from the past. My mind misgave me that after all it had
died a dusty death for lack of water. True, the cactus tribe being
succulent plants do not demand much moisture, but I had reason to fear
that, in this instance, the principle had been applied too far, and
that after copious baths of cold spring water in the first days of its
popularity it had eventually perished by drought. I suppose I looked
guilty, for it nodded its prickly head towards me, and said, 'Ah! you
know me. You remember what I was, do you? Did you ever think of what I
might have been? There was a fairy rose which came down here not long
ago--a common rose enough, in a broken pot patched with string and
white paint. It had lived in a street where it was the only pure
beautiful thing your eyes could see. When the girl who kept it died
there were eighteen roses upon it. She was eighteen years old, and they
put the roses in the coffin with her when she was buried. That was
worth living for. Who knows what I might have done? And what right had
you to cut short a life that might have been useful?'

"Before I could think of a reply to these too just reproaches, the
flower-pot enlarged, the plant shot up, putting forth new branches as
it grew; then buds burst from the prickly limbs, and in a few moments
there hung about it great drooping blossoms of lovely pink, with long