"Why, look here! I brought it along to show you."

Whereupon she produced from under her piece of torn shawl a large
broken-nosed pitcher, a piece of brown paper carefully tied over the
top. She untied the bit of calico string with fingers that shook from
excitement.

"Look in there!" she exclaimed at last, triumph in her tone, reaching
forward the pitcher.

Sallie looked, and drew in her breath with a long, expressive "O-h!"

There, reposing in stately beauty, lay the great white lily with its
golden bell.

"Yes, I should think so!" Mart said, satisfied with the expression. "Did
you ever see anything like that before? It ain't made of wax nor
anything else that _folks_ ever made. It's alive! I felt of it. It
looks like velvet and satin and all them lovely store things; but it
doesn't feel so; it feels _alive_, and it _grew_. But, Sallie
Calkins, if you should live a hundred years, and guess all the time, you
never could guess where I got it. Sallie Calkins, if you'll believe it,
Dirk gave it to me!"

"Dirk?"

"Yes, he did!"

Who would have supposed Mart Colson's voice capable of such a triumphant