"I went back the very next day after we moved out, with a peach-basket
and a fire-shovel. But my poor bush was buried under seven feet of yellow
sand. To-day there's seven stories of brick and mortar. So all I've got
from the old place is just this furniture of ma's and the wall-paper."

"The wall-paper?"

"Not the identical same, of course. It's like what I had in my bedroom
when I was a girl. I remembered the pattern, and tried everywhere to
match it. At first I just tried on Twenty-second Street. Then I went
down-town. Then I tried all the little places away out on the West Side.
Then I had the pattern put down on paper, and I made a tour of the
country. I went to Belvidere, and to Beloit, and to Janesville, and to
lots of other places between here and Geneva. And finally--"

"Well, what--finally?"

"Finally, I sent down East and had eight or ten rolls made to order. I
chased harder than anybody ever chased for a Raphael, and I spent more
than if I had hung the room with Gobelins; but--"

She stroked the narrow strips of pink and green with a fond hand, and
cast on Jane a look which pleaded indulgence. "Isn't it just too quaintly
ugly for anything?"

"It isn't any such thing," cried Jane. "It's just as sweet as it can be!
I only wish mine was like it."

Mrs. Bates glanced from the wall-paper to the window-box, and from the