been full of innocent pleasures, was now utterly tasteless, except in
its hours of bitterness when sorrow overcame her like a flood. She had
a pretty flower-garden in which she used to work. When George was at
home what pleasure it had been to plant them with her lover's help, to
watch them expand, to water them in the summer evening, to smell their
gratitude for the artificial shower after a sultry day, and then to
have George in, and set him admiring them with such threadbare
enthusiasm, simply because they were hers, not in the least because
they were Nature's.

I will go back, like the epic writers, and sketch one of their little
garden scenes.

One evening, after watering them all, she sat down on a seat at the
bottom of the garden, and casting her eyes over her whole domain,
said, "Well, now, I do admire flowers; don't you, George?"

"That I do," replied George, taking another seat, and coolly turning
his back on the parterre, and gazing mildly into Susan's eyes.

"Why, he is not even looking at them!" cried Susan, and she clapped
her hands and laughed gleefully.

"Oh, yes, he is; leastways he is looking at one of them, and the
brightest of the lot to my fancy."

Susan colored with pleasure. In the country compliments don't drip
constantly on beauty even from the lips of love. Then, suppressing her
satisfaction, she said, "You will look for a flower in return for
that, young man; come and let us see whether there is one good enough