longer; and she had brought a napkin, which she drenched at a
hydrant, and kept loosely wrapped about the stems of her
collection.

The turf was too damp for her to kneel; she worked patiently,
stooping from the waist; and when she got home in a drizzle of
rain at five o'clock her knees were tremulous with strain, her
back ached, and she was tired all over, but she had three hundred
violets. Her mother moaned when Alice showed them to her,
fragrant in a basin of water.

"Oh, you POOR child! To think of your having to work so hard to
get things that other girls only need lift their little fingers
for!"

"Never mind," said Alice, huskily. "I've got 'em and I AM going
to have a good time to-night!"

"You've just got to!" Mrs. Adams agreed, intensely sympathetic.
"The Lord knows you deserve to, after picking all these violets,
poor thing, and He wouldn't be mean enough to keep you from it.
I may have to get dinner before I finish the dress, but I can get
it done in a few minutes afterward, and it's going to look right
pretty. Don't you worry about THAT! And with all these lovely
violets----"

"I wonder----" Alice began, paused, then went on, fragmentarily:
"I suppose--well, I wonder--do you suppose it would have been
better policy to have told Walter before----"