"What work?"

"That I'm here and that you're here: that the action of Truth has brought these wonders about."

After breakfast the farewells were said. "You're happy, aren't you, father?" asked Jewel doubtfully, as she clung about his neck.

"Never so happy, Jewel," he answered.

She turned to her grandfather. "When is father coming back again?" she asked.

"As soon as he can," was the reply.

"You don't want me until September, I believe," said the young man bluntly. He still retained the consciousness, half amused, half hurt, that his father considered him superfluous.

"Why, September is almost next winter," said Jewel appealingly.

Mr. Evringham looked his son full in the eyes and liked the direct way they met him.

"The latchstring will be out from now on, Harry I want you to feel that it is your latchstring as much as mine."

His son did not speak, but the way the two men suddenly clasped hands gave Jewel a very comforted sensation.

"And you don't feel a bit sorry to be going alone to Chicago?" she pursued, again centring her attention and embrace upon her father.

"I tell you I was never so happy in my life," he responded, kissing her and setting her on her feet. "Are you going to allow me to drive to the station in your place this morning?"

"I'd let you do anything, father," returned Jewel affectionately. It touched her little heart to see him go alone away from such a happy family circle, but her mother's good cheer was reassuring.

They had scarcely had a minute alone together since Mrs. Evringham's arrival, and when the last wave had been sent toward the head leaning out of the brougham window, mother and child went up the broad staircase together, pausing before the tall clock whose chime had grown so familiar to Jewel since that chilling day when Mrs. Forbes warned her not to touch it.

"Everything in this house is so fine, Jewel," said the mother. "It must have seemed very strange to you at first."

"It did. Anna Belle and I felt more at home out of doors, because you see God owned the woods, and He didn't care if we broke something, and Mrs. Forbes used to be so afraid; but it's all much different now," added the child.

They went on up to the room where stood the small trunk which was all Mrs. Evringham had taken abroad for her personal belongings.

To many children the moment of their mother's unpacking after a return from a trip is fraught with pleasant and eager anticipation of gifts. In this case it was different; for Jewel had no previous journey of her mother's to remember, and her gifts had always been so small, with the shining exception of Anna Belle, that she made no calculations now concerning the steamer trunk, as she watched her mother take out its contents.

Each step Mrs. Evringham took on the rich carpet, each glance she cast at the park through the clear sheets of plate glass in the windows, each smooth-running drawer, each undreamed-of convenience in the closet with its electric light for dark days, impressed her afresh with a sense of wondering pleasure. The lady of her name who had so recently dwelt among these luxuries had accepted them fretfully, as no more than her due; the long glass which now reflected Julia's radiant dark eyes lately gave back a countenance impressed with lines of care and discontent.

"Jewel, I feel like a queen here," said the happy woman softly. "I like beautiful things very much, but I never had them before in my life. Come, darling, we must read the lesson." She closed the lid of the trunk.

"Yes, but wait till I get Anna Belle." The child ran into her own room and brought the doll. Then she jumped into her mother's lap, for there was room for all three in the big chair by the window.

Some memory made the little girl lift her shoulders. "This was aunt Madge's chair," she said. "She used to sit here in the prettiest lace wrapper—I was never in this room before except two or three times,"—Jewel's awed tone changed,—"but now my own mother lives here! and cousin Eloise would love to know it and to know that I have her room. I mean to write her about it."

"You must take me upstairs pretty soon and let me see the chamber that was yours. Oh, there is so much to see, Jewel; shall we ever get to the end?" Mrs. Evringham's tone was joyous, as she hugged the child impulsively, and rested her cheek on the flaxen head. "Darling," she went on softly, "think what Divine Love has done for mother, to bring her here! I've worked very hard, my little girl, and though Love helped me all the time, and I was happy, I've had so much care, and almost never a day when I had leisure to stop and think about something else than my work. I expected to go right back to it now, with father, and I didn't worry, because God was leading me—but, dearie, when I woke up this morning"—she paused, and as Jewel lifted her head, mother and child gazed into one another's eyes—"I said—you know what I said?"

For answer the little girl smiled gladly and began to sing the familiar hymn. Her mother joined an alto to the clear voice, in the manner that had been theirs for years, and fervently, now, they sang the words:—

"Green pastures are before me, Which yet I have not seen. Bright skies will soon be o'er me, Where darkest clouds have been. My hope I cannot measure, My path in life is free, My Father has my treasure, And He will walk with me!"

Jewel looked joyous.

"The green pastures were in Bel-Air Park, weren't they?" she said, "and you hadn't seen them, had you?"

"No," returned Mrs. Evringham gently, "and just now there is not a cloud in our bright sky."

"Father's gone away," returned Jewel doubtfully.

"Only to get ready to come back. It is very wonderful, Jewel."

"Yes, it is. I'm sure it makes God glad to see us so happy."

"I'm sure it does; and the best of it is that father knows that it is love alone that brought this happiness, just as it brings all the real happiness that ever comes in the world. He sees that it is only what knowledge we have of God that made it possible for him to come back to what ought to be his, his father's welcome home! Father sees that it is a demonstration of love, and that is more important than all; for anything that gives us a stronger grasp on the truth, and more understanding of its working, is of the greatest value to us."

"Didn't grandpa love father before?" asked Jewel, in surprise.

"Yes, but father disappointed him and error crept in between them, so it was only when father began to understand the truth and ask God to help him, that the discord could disappear. Isn't it beautiful that it has, Jewel?"

"I don't think discord is much, mother," declared the little girl.

"Of course it isn't," returned her mother. "It isn't anything."

"When I first came, grandpa had so many things to make him sorry, and everybody else here was sorry—and now nobody is. Even aunt Madge was happy over the pretty clothes she had to go away with."

"And she'll be happy over other things, some day," returned Mrs. Evringham, who had already gathered a tolerably clear idea of her sister-in-law. "Eloise has learned how to help her."

"Oh, ye—es! She isn't afraid of discord any more."

"Now we'll study the lesson, darling. Think of having all the time we want for it!"

After they had finished, Mrs. Evringham leaned back in the big chair and patted Jewel's knee. Opening the bag at her side she took out a small box and gave it to the child, who opened it eagerly. A bright little garnet ring reposed on the white velvet.

"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Jewel, delighted. She put on the ring, which just fitted, and then hugged her mother before she looked at it again.

"Dear little Anna Belle, when you're a big girl"—she began, turning to the doll, but Mrs. Evringham interrupted.

"Wait a minute, Jewel, here is Anna Belle's."

She took out another box and, ah, what a charming necklace appeared, brilliant with gems which outshone completely the three little garnets. Jewel jumped for joy when she had clasped it about the round neck.

"Oh, mother, mother!" she exclaimed, patting her mother's cheek, "you kept thinking about us every day, didn't you! Kiss your grandma, dearie," which the proud and happy Anna Belle did with a fervor that threatened to damage Mrs. Evringham's front teeth.

"I brought you something else, Jewel," said the mother, with her arms around the child. "I did think of you every day, and on the ship going over, it was pretty hard, because I had never been away from my little girl and I didn't know just what she was doing, and I didn't even know the people she was with; so, partly to keep my thoughts from error, I began to—to make something for you."

"Oh, what was it?" asked Jewel eagerly.

"I didn't finish it going over, and I had no time to do so until we were on the steamer coming home again. Then I was lighter hearted and happier, because I knew my little darling had found green pastures, but—I finished it. I don't know how much you will care for it."

Jewel questioned the dark eyes and smiling lips eagerly.

"What is it, mother; a bag for my skates?"

"No."

"A—a handkerchief?"

"No."

"Oh, tell me, mother, I can't wait."

Mrs. Evringham put the little girl down from her lap and going to the trunk took from it the only article it still contained. It was a long, flat book with pasteboard covers tied at the back with little ribbons. As she again took her seat in the big chair, Jewel leaned against its arm.

"It's a scrap-book full of pictures," she said, with interest.

For answer her mother turned the cover toward her so she could read the words lettered distinctly upon it.

JEWEL'S STORY BOOK

Then Mrs. Evringham ran her finger along the edges of the volume and let the type-written pages flutter before its owner's delighted eyes.

"You've made me some stories, mother!" cried Jewel. One of the great pleasures and treats of her life had been those rare half hours when her busy mother had time to tell her a story.

Her eyes danced with delight. "Oh, you're the kindest mother!" she went on, "and you'll have time to read them to me now! Anna Belle, won't it be the most fun? Oh, mother, we'll go to the ravine to read, won't we?"

Mrs. Evringham's cheeks flushed and she laughed at the child's joy. "I hope they won't disappoint you," she said.

"But you wrote them out of love. How can they?" returned the little girl quickly.

"That's so, Jewel; that's so, dear."



CHAPTER VIII

THE QUEST FLOWER

The garden in the ravine had been put into fine order to exhibit to Jewel's father and mother. Fresh ferns had been planted around the still pond where Anna Belle's china dolls went swimming, and fresh moss banks had been constructed for their repose. The brook was beginning to lose the impetuosity of spring and now gurgled more quietly between its verdant banks. It delighted Jewel that the place held as much charm for her mother as for herself, and that she listened with as hushed pleasure to the songs of birds in the treetops too high to be disturbed by the presence of dwellers on the ground. It was an ideal spot wherein to read aloud, and the early hours of that sunshiny afternoon found the three seated there by the brookside ready to begin the Story Book.

"Now I'll read the titles and you shall choose what one we will take first," said Mrs. Evringham.

Jewel's attention was as unwinking as Anna Belle's, as she listened to the names.

"Anna Belle ought to have first choice because she's the youngest. Then I'll have next, and you next. Anna Belle chooses The Quest Flower; because she loves flowers so and she can't imagine what that means."

"Very well," returned Mrs. Evringham, smiling and settling herself more comfortably against a tree trunk. "The little girl in this story loved them too;" and so saying, Jewel's mother began to read aloud:—

THE QUEST FLOWER

Hazel Wright learned to love her uncle Dick Badger very much during a visit he made at her mother's home in Boston. She became well acquainted with him. He was always kind to her in his quiet way, and always had time to take her on his knee and listen to whatever she had to tell about her school or her plays, and even took an interest in her doll, Ella. Mrs. Wright used to laugh and tell her brother that he was a wonderful old bachelor, and could give lessons to many a husband and father; upon which uncle Dick responded that he had always been fond of assuming a virtue if he had it not; and Hazel wondered if "assuming-a-virtue" were a little girl. At any rate, she loved uncle Dick and wished he would live with them always; so it will be seen that when it was suddenly decided that Hazel was to go home with him to the town where he lived, she was delighted.

"Father and I are called away on business, Hazel," her mother said to her one day, "and we have been wondering what to do with you. Uncle Dick says he'll take you home with him if you would like to go."

"Oh, yes, I would," replied the little girl; for it was vacation and she wanted an outing. "Uncle Dick has a big yard, and Ella and I can have fun there."

"I'm sure you can. Uncle Dick's housekeeper, Hannah, is a kind soul, and she knew me when I was as little as you are, and will take good care of you."

The evening before Hazel and her uncle were to leave, Mrs. Wright spoke to her brother in private.

"It seems too bad not to be able to write aunt Hazel that her namesake is coming," she said. "Is she as bitter as ever?"

"Oh, yes. No change."

"Just think of it!" exclaimed Mrs. Wright. "She lives within a stone's throw of you, and yet can remain unforgiving so many years. Let me see—it is eight; for Hazel is ten years old, and I know she was two when the trouble about the property camp up; but you did right, Dick, and some time aunt Hazel must know it."

"Oh, I think she has lucid intervals when she knows it now," returned Mr. Badger; "but her pride won't let her admit it. If it amuses her, it doesn't hurt me for her to pass me on the street without a word or a look. When a thing like that has run along for years, it isn't easy to make any change."

"Oh, but it is so unchristian, so wrong," returned his sister. "If you only had a loving enough feeling, Dick, it seems as if you might take her by storm."

Mr. Badger smiled at some memory. "I tried once. She did the storming." He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm a man of peace. I decided to let her alone."

Mrs. Wright shook her head. "Well, I haven't told Hazel anything about it. She knows she is named for my aunt; but she doesn't know where aunt Hazel lives, and I wish you would warn Hannah not to tell the child anything about her or the affair. You know we lay a great deal of stress on not voicing discord of my kind."

"Yes, I know," Mr. Badger smiled and nodded. 'Your methods seem to have turned out a mighty nice little girl, and it's been a wonder to me ever since I came, to see you going about, such a different creature from what you used to be."

"Yes, I'm well and happy," returned Mrs. Wright, "and I long to have this trouble between you and aunt Hazel at an end. I suppose Hazel isn't likely to come in contact with her at all."

"No, indeed; no more than if aunt Hazel lived in Kamschatka. She does, if it's cold enough there."

"Dear woman. She ignored the last two letters I wrote her, I suppose because I sided with you."

"Oh, certainly, that would be an unpardonable offense. Hannah tells me she has a crippled child visiting her now, the daughter of some friends. Hannah persists in keeping an eye on aunt Hazel's affairs, and telling me about them. Hannah will be pleased to have little Hazel to make a pet of for a few weeks."

He was right. The housekeeper was charmed. She did everything to make Hazel feel at home in her uncle's house, and discovering that the little girl had a passion for flowers, let her make a garden bed of her own. Hazel went with her uncle to buy plants for this, and she had great fun taking geraniums and pansies out of their pots and planting them in the soft brown earth of the round garden plot; and every day blue-eyed Ella, her doll, sat by and watched Hazel pick out every little green weed that had put its head up in the night.

"You're only grass, dearie," she would say to one as she uprooted it, "and grass is all right most everywhere; but this is a garden, so run away."

Not very far down the street was a real garden, though, that gave Hazel such joy to look at that she carried Ella there every day when it didn't rain, and would have gone every day when it did, only Hannah wouldn't let her.

The owner of the garden, Miss Fletcher, at the window where she sat sewing, began to notice the little stranger at last; for the child stood outside the fence with her doll, and gazed and gazed so long each time, that the lady began to regard her with suspicion.

"That young one is after my flowers, I'm afraid, Flossie," she said one day to the pale little girl in the wheeled chair that stood near another window looking on the street.

"I've noticed her ever so many times," returned Flossie listlessly. "I never saw her until this week, and she's always alone."

"Well, I won't have her climbing on my fence!" exclaimed Miss Fletcher, half laying down her work and watching Hazel's movements sharply through her spectacles. "There, she's grabbing hold of a picket now!" she exclaimed suddenly. "I'll see to her in quick order."

She jumped up and hurried out of the room, and Flossie's tired eyes watched her spare figure as she marched down the garden path. She didn't care if Miss Fletcher did send the strange child away. What difference could it make to a girl who had the whole world to walk around in, and who could take her doll and go and play in some other pleasant place?

As Hazel saw Miss Fletcher coming, she gazed at the unsmiling face looking out from hair drawn back in a tight knot; and Miss Fletcher, on her part, saw such winning eagerness in the smile that met her, that she modified the sharp reproof ready to spring forth.

"Get down off the fence, little girl," she said. "You oughtn't ever to hang by the pickets; you'll break one if you do."

"Oh, yes," returned Hazel, getting down quickly. "I didn't think of that. I wanted so much to see if that lily-bud had opened, that looked as if it was going to, yesterday; and it has."

"Which one?" asked Miss Fletcher, looking around.

"Right there behind that second rosebush," replied Hazel, holding Ella tight with one arm while she pointed eagerly.

"Oh, yes." Miss Fletcher went over to the plant.

"I think it is the loveliest of all," went on the little girl. "It makes me think of the quest flower."

"What's that?" Miss Fletcher looked at the strange child curiously. "I never heard of it."

"It's the perfect flower," returned Hazel.

"Where did you ever see it?"

"I never did, but I read about it."

"Where is it to be bought?" Miss Fletcher was really interested now, because flowers were her hobby.

"In the story it says at the Public Garden; but I've been to the Public Garden in Boston, and I never saw any I thought were as beautiful as yours."

Hazel was not trying to win Miss Fletcher's heart, but she had found the road to it.

The care-lined face regarded her more closely than ever. "I don't remember you. I thought I knew all the children around here."

"No 'm. I'm a visitor. I live in Boston; and we have a flat and of course there isn't any yard, and I think your garden is perfectly beautiful. I come to see it every day, and it's fun to stand out here and count the smells."

Miss Fletcher's face broke into a smile. It did really seem as if it cracked, because her lips had been set in such a tight line. "It ain't very often children like flowers unless they can pick them," she replied. "I can't sleep nights sometimes, wishing my garden wasn't so near the fence."

The little girl smiled and pointed to a climbing rose that had strayed from its trellis, and one pink flower that was poking its pretty little face between the pickets. "See that one," she said. "I think it wanted to look up and down the street, don't you?"

"And you didn't gather it," returned Miss Fletcher, looking at Hazel approvingly. "Well, now, for anybody fond of flowers as you are, I think that was real heroic."

"She belongs to nice folks," she decided mentally.

"Oh, it was a tame flower," returned the child, "and that would have been error. If it had been a wild one I would have picked it."

"Error, eh?" returned Miss Fletcher, and again her thin lips parted in a smile. "Well, I wish everybody felt that way."

"Uncle Dick lets me have a garden," said Hazel. "He let me buy geraniums and pansies and lemon verbena—I love that, don't you?"

"Yes. I've got a big plant of it back here. Wouldn't you like to come in and see it?"

"Oh, thank you," returned Hazel, her gray eyes sparkling; and Miss Fletcher felt quite a glow of pleasure in seeing the happiness she was conferring by the invitation. Most of her friends took her garden as a matter of course; and smiled patronizingly at her devotion to it.

In a minute the little girl had run to the gate in the white fence, and, entering, joined the mistress of the house, who stood beside the flourishing plants blooming in all their summer loveliness.

For the next fifteen minutes neither of the two knew that time was flying. They talked and compared and smelled of this blossom and that, their unity of interest making their acquaintance grow at lightning speed. Miss Fletcher was more pleased than she had been for many a day, and as for Hazel, when her hostess went down on her knees beside a verbena bed and began taking steel hairpins from her tightly knotted hair, to pin down the luxuriant plants that they might go on rooting and spread farther, the little girl felt that the climax of interest was reached.

"I'm going to ask uncle Dick," she said admiringly, "if I can't have some verbenas and a paper of hairpins."

"Dear me," returned Miss Fletcher, "I wish poor Flossie took as much interest in the garden as you do."

"'Flossie' sounds like a kitten, returned Hazel.

"She's a little human kitten: a poor little afflicted girl who is making me a visit. You can see her sitting up there in the house, by the window."

Hazel looked up and caught a glimpse of a pale face. Her eyes expressed her wonder. "Who afflicted her?" she asked softly.

"Her Heavenly Father, for some wise purpose," was the response.

"Oh, it couldn't have been that!" returned the child, shocked. "You know God is Love."

"Yes, I know," replied Miss Fletcher, turning to her visitor in surprise at so decided an answer from such a source; "but it isn't for us to question what His love is. It's very different from our poor mortal ideas. There's something the matter with poor Flossie's back, and she can't walk. The doctors say it's nervous and perhaps she'll outgrow it; but I think she gets worse all the time."

Hazel watched the speaker with eyes full of trouble and perplexity. "Dear me," she replied, "if you think God made her get that way, who do you think 's going to cure her?"

"Nobody, it seems. Her people have spent more than they can afford, trying and trying. They've made themselves poor, but nobody's helped her so far."

Hazel's eyes swept over the roses and lilies and then back to Miss Fletcher's face. The lady was regarding her curiously. She saw that thoughts were hurrying through the mind of the little girl standing there with her doll in her arms.

"You look as if you wanted to say something," she said at last.

"I don't want to be impolite," returned Hazel, hesitating.

"Well," returned Miss Fletcher dryly, "if you knew the amount of impoliteness that has been given to me in my time, you wouldn't hesitate about adding a little more. Speak out and tell me what you are thinking."

"I was thinking how wonderful and how nice it is that flowers will grow for everybody," said Hazel, half reluctantly.

"How's that?" demanded her new friend, in fresh surprise. "Have you decided I don't deserve them?"

"Oh, you deserve them, of course," replied the child quickly; "but when you have such thoughts about God, it's a wonder His flowers can grow so beautifully in your yard."

Miss Fletcher felt a warmth come into her cheeks.

"Well," she returned rather sharply, "I should like to know what sort of teaching you've had. You're a big enough girl to know that it's a Christian's business to be resigned to the will of God. You don't happen to have seen many, sick folks, I guess—what is your name?"

"Hazel."

"Why, that's queer, so is mine; and it isn't a common one."

"Isn't that nice!" returned the child. "We're both named Hazel and we both love flowers so much."

"Yes; that's quite a coincidence. Now, why shouldn't flowers grow for me, I should like to know?"

"Why, you think God afflicted that little girl's back, and didn't let her walk. Why, Miss Fletcher," the child's voice grew more earnest, "He wouldn't do it any more than I'd kneel down and break the stem of that lovely quest flower and let it hang there and wither."

Miss Fletcher pushed up her spectacles and gazed down into the clear gray eyes.

"Does Flossie think He would?" added Hazel with soft amazement.

"I suppose she does."

"Then does she say her prayers just the same?"

"Of course she does."

"What a kind girl she must be!" exclaimed Hazel earnestly.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I wouldn't pray to anybody that I believed kept me afflicted."

Miss Fletcher started back. "Why, child!" she exclaimed, "I should think you'd expect a thunderbolt. Where do your folks go to church, for pity's sake?"

"To the Christian Science church."

"Oh—h, that's what's the matter with you! Some of Flossie's relatives have heard about that, and they've been teasing her mother to try it. I'm sure I'd try anything that wasn't blasphemous."

"What is blasphemous?"

"Why—why—anything that isn't respectful to God is blasphemous."

"Oh!" returned Hazel. Then she added softly, "I should think you were that, now."

"What!" and Miss Fletcher seemed to tower above her visitor in her amazement.

"Oh—please excuse me. I didn't mean to be impolite; but if you'll just try, you'll find out what a mistake you and Flossie have been making, and that God wants to heal her."

The two looked at one another for a silent half-minute, the little girl's heart beating faster under the grim gaze.

"You might come and see her some day," suggested Miss Fletcher, at last. "She has a dull time of it, poor child. I've asked the children to come in, and they've all been very kind, but it's vacation, and a good many that I know have gone away."

"I will," replied Hazel. "Doesn't she like to come out here where the flowers are?"

"Yes; it's been a little too cloudy and threatening to-day, but if it's clear to-morrow I'll wheel her out under the elm-tree, and she'd like a visit from you. Are you staying far from here?"

"No, uncle Dick's is right on this street."

"What's his last name?"

"Mr. Badger," replied Hazel, and she didn't notice the sudden stiffening that went through Miss Fletcher.

"What is your last name?" asked the lady, in a changed voice.

"Wright."

This time any one who had eyes for something beside the flowers might have seen Miss Fletcher start. Color flew into her thin cheeks, and the eyes that stared at Hazel's straw tam-o'-shanter grew dim. This was dear Mabel Badger's child; her little namesake, her own flesh and blood.

Her jaw felt rigid as she asked the next question. "Have you ever spoken to your uncle Dick about my garden?"

"Yes, indeed. That's why he let me make one; and every night he asks, 'Well, how's Miss Fletcher's garden to-day,' and I tell him all about it"

"And didn't he ever say anything to you about me?"

"Why, no;" the child looked up wonderingly. "He doesn't know you, does he?"

"We used to know one another," returned Miss Fletcher stiffly.

Richard had certainly behaved very decently in this particular instance. At least he had told no lies.

"Hazel is such an unusual name," she went on, after a minute. "Who were you named for?"

"My mother's favorite aunt," returned the child.

"Where does she live?"

"I don't know," replied Hazel vaguely. "My mother was talking to me about her the evening before uncle Dick and I left Boston. She told me how much she loved aunt Hazel; but that error had crept in, and they couldn't see each other just now, but that God would bring it all right some day. I have a lovely silver spoon she gave me when I was a baby."

Miss Fletcher stooped to her border and cut a bunch of mignonette with the scissors that hung from her belt. "Here's something for you to smell of as you walk home," she said, and Hazel saw her new friend's hand tremble as she held out the flowers. "Do you ever kiss strangers?" added the hostess as she rose to her feet.

Hazel held up her face and took hold of Miss Fletcher's arm as she kissed her. "I think you've been so kind to me," she said warmly. "I've had the best time!"

"Well, pick the climbing rose as you pass," returned Miss Fletcher. "It seems to want to see the world. Let it go along with you; and don't forget to come to-morrow. I hope it will be pleasant."

She stood still, the warm breeze ruffling the thin locks about her forehead, and watched the little girl trip along the walk. The child looked back and smiled as she stopped to pick the pink rose, and when she threw a kiss to Miss Fletcher, that lady found herself responding.

She went into the house with a flush remaining in her cheeks.

"How long you stayed, aunt Hazel," said the little invalid fretfully as she entered.

"I expect I did," returned Miss Fletcher, and there was a new life in her tone that Flossie noticed.

"Who is that girl?"

"Her name is Hazel Wright, and she is living at the Badgers'. She's as crazy about flowers as I am, so we had a lot to say. She gave me a lecture on religion, too;" an excited little laugh escaped between the speaker's lips. "She's a very unusual child; and she certainly has a look of the Fletchers."

"What? I thought you said her name was Wright."

"It is! My tongue slipped. She's coming to see you to-morrow, Flossie. We must fix up your doll. I'll wash and iron her pink dress this very afternoon; for Hazel has a beauty doll, herself. I think you'll like that little girl."

That evening when uncle Dick and Hazel were at their supper, Mr. Badger questioned her as usual about her day.

"I've had the most fun," she replied. "I've been to see Miss Fletcher, and she took me into her garden, and we smelled of all the flowers, and had the loveliest time!"

Hannah was standing behind the little girl's chair, and her eyes spoke volumes as she nodded significantly at her employer.

"Yes, sir, she told Miss Fletcher where she was visiting, and she gave her a bunch of mignonette and a rose to bring home."

"Yes," agreed Hazel, "they're in a vase in the parlor now, and she asked me to come to-morrow to see an afflicted girl that's living with her. You know, uncle Dick," Hazel lifted her eyes to him earnestly, "you know how it says everywhere in the Bible that anybody that's afflicted goes to God and He heals them; and what do you think! Miss Fletcher and that little Flossie girl both believe God afflicted her and fixed her back so she can't walk!"

Mr. Badger smiled as he met the wondering eyes. "That isn't Christian Science, is it?" he returned.

"I'd rather never have a garden even like Miss Fletcher's than to think that," declared Hazel, as she went on with her supper. "I feel so sorry for them!"

"So you're going over to-morrow," said Mr. Badger. "What are you going to do; treat the little invalid?"

"Why, no indeed, not unless she asks me to."

"Why not?"

"Because it would be error; it's the worst kind of impoliteness to treat anybody that doesn't ask you to; but I've got to know every minute that her belief is a lie, and that God doesn't know anything about it."

"I thought God knew everything," said Mr. Badger, regarding the child curiously.

"He does, of course, everything that's going to last forever and ever: everything that's beautiful and good and strong. Whatever God thinks about has got to last." The child lifted her shoulders. "I'm glad He doesn't think about mistakes,—sickness, and everything like that, aren't you?"

"I don't want sickness to last forever, I'm sure" returned Mr. Badger.

The following day was clear and bright, and early in the afternoon Hazel, dressed in a clean gingham frock, took her doll and walked up the street to Miss Fletcher's.

The wheeled chair was already out under the elm-tree, and Flossie was watching for her guest. Miss Fletcher was sitting near her, sewing, and waiting with concealed impatience for the appearance of the bright face under the straw tam-o'-shanter.

As soon as Hazel reached the corner of the fence and saw them there, she began to run, her eyes fixed eagerly on the white figure in the wheeled chair. The blue eyes that looked so tired regarded her curiously as she ran up the garden path and across the grass to the large, shady tree.

Hazel had never been close to a sick person, and something in Flossie's appearance and the whiteness of her thin hands that clasped the doll in the gay pink dress brought a lump into the well child's throat and made her heart beat.

"Dear Father, I want to help her!" she said under her breath, and Miss Fletcher noticed that she had no eyes for her, and saw the wondering pity in her face as she came straight up to the invalid's chair.

"Flossie Wallace, this is Hazel Wright," she said, and Flossie smiled a little under the love that leaped from Hazel's eyes into hers.

"I'm glad you brought your doll," said Flossie.

"Ella goes everywhere I do," returned Hazel. "What's your doll's name?"

"Bernice; I think Bernice is a beautiful name," said Flossie.

"So do I," returned Hazel. Then the two children were silent a minute, looking at one another, uncertain how to go on.

Hazel was the first to speak. "Isn't it lovely to live with this garden?" she asked.

"Yes, aunt Hazel has nice flowers."

"I have an aunt Hazel, too," said the little visitor.

"Miss Fletcher isn't my real aunt, but I call her that," remarked Flossie.

"And you might do it, too," suggested Miss Fletcher, looking at Hazel, to whom her heart warmed more and more in spite of the astonishing charges of the day before.

"Do you think I could call you aunt Hazel?" asked the child, rather shyly.

"For the sake of being cousin to my garden, you might. Don't you think so?"

"How is the quest flower to-day?" asked Hazel.

"Which? Oh, you mean the garden lily. There's another bud."

"Oh, may I look at it?" cried Hazel, "and wouldn't you like to come too?" turning to Flossie. "Can't I roll your chair?"

"Yes, indeed," said Miss Fletcher, pleased. "It rolls very easily. Give Flossie your doll, too, and we'll all go and see the lily bud."

Hazel obeyed, and carefully pushing the light chair, they moved slowly toward the spot where the white chalices of the garden lilies poured forth their incense.

"Miss Fletcher," cried Hazel excitedly, dropping on her knees beside the bed, "that is going to be the most beautiful of all. When it is perfectly open the plant will be ready to take to the king." The little girl lifted her shoulders and looked up at her hostess, smiling.

"What king is going to get my lily?"

"The one who will send you on your quest."

"What am I to go in quest of?" inquired Miss Fletcher, much entertained.

"I don't know;" Hazel shook her head. "Every one's errand is different."

"What is a quest?" asked Flossie.

"You tell her, Hazel."

"Why, mother says it's a search for some treasure."

"You must tell us this story about the quest flower some day," said Miss Fletcher.

"I have the story of it here," returned Hazel eagerly. "I've read it over and over again because I love it, and so mother put it in my trunk with my Christian Science books. I can bring it over and read it to you, if you want me to. You'd like it, I know, Miss Fletcher."

"Aunt Hazel told me you were a Christian Scientist," said Flossie. "I never saw one before, but people have talked to mother about it."

"I could bring those books over, too," replied Hazel wistfully, "and we could read the lesson every day, and perhaps it would make you feel better."

"I don't know what it's about," said Flossie.

"It's about making sick people well and sinful people good."

"I'm sinful, too, part of the time," answered Flossie. "Sometimes I don't like to live, and I wish I didn't have to, and everybody says that's sinful."

Sudden tears started to Miss Fletcher's eyes, and as the little girls were looking at one another absorbedly, Hazel standing close to the wheeled chair, she stole away, unobserved, to the house.

"She ought to be cured," she said to herself excitedly. "She ought to be cured. There's that one more chance, anyway. I've got to where I'm ready to let the babes and sucklings have a try!"



CHAPTER IX

THE QUEST FLOWER (Continued)

The next morning was rainy, and Jewel and her grandfather visited the stable instead of taking their canter.

"And what will you do this dismal day?" asked the broker of his daughter-in-law as they stood alone for a minute after breakfast, Jewel having run upstairs to get Anna Belle for the drive to the station.

"This happy day," she answered, lifting to him the radiant face that he was always mentally contrasting with Madge. "The rain will give me a chance to look at the many treasures you have here, books and pictures."

"H'm. You are musical, I know, for Jewel has the voice of a lark. Do you play the piano?"

Julia looked wistfully at the Steinway grand. "Ah, if I only could!" she returned.

Mr. Evringham cleared his throat. "Madam," he said, lowering his voice, "that child has a most amazing talent."

"Jewel's voice, do you mean?"

"She'll sing, I'm sure of it," he replied, "but I mean for music in general. Eloise is an accomplished pianist. She has one piece that Jewel especially enjoyed, the old Spring Song of Mendelssohn. Probably you know it."

Julia shook her head. "I doubt it. I've heard very little good piano playing."

"Well, madam, that child has picked out the melody of that piece by herself," the broker lowered his voice to still deeper impressiveness. "As soon as we return in the autumn, we will have her begin lessons."

Julia's eyes met his gratefully.

"A very remarkable talent. I am positive of it," he went on. "Jewel," for here the child entered the room, "play the Spring Song for your mother, will you?"

"Now? Zeke is out there, grandpa."

"Dick can stretch his legs a bit faster this morning. Play it."

So Jewel set Anna Belle on a brocaded chair and going to the piano, played the melody of the Spring Song. She could perform only a few measures, but there were no false notes in the little chromatic passages, and her grandfather's eyes sought Julia's in grave triumph.

"A very marvelous gift," he managed to say to her again under his breath, as Jewel at last ran ahead of him out to the porte cochere.

Julia's eyes grew dreamy as she watched the brougham drive off. How different was to be the future of her little girl from anything she had planned in her rosiest moments of hopefulness.

The more she saw of Mr. Evringham's absorbed attachment to the child, the more grateful she was for the manner in which he had guarded Jewel's simplicity, the self-restraint with which he had abstained from loading her with knickknacks or fine clothes. The child was not merely a pet with him. She was an individual, a character whose development he respected.

"God keep her good!" prayed the mother.

It was a charming place to continue the story, there in the large chintz chair by Mrs. Evringham's window. The raindrops pattered against the clear glass, the lawn grew greener, and the great trees beyond the gateway held their leaves up to the bath.

"Anna Belle's pond will overflow, I think," said Jewel, looking out the window musingly.

"And how good for the ferns," remarked her mother.

"Yes, I'd like to be there, now," said the child.

"Oh, I think it's much cosier here. I love to hear the rain, too, don't you?"

"Yes, I do, and we'll have the story now, won't we, mother?"

At this moment there was a knock at the door and Zeke appeared with an armful of birch wood.

"Mr. Evringham said it might be a little damp up here and I was to lay a fire."

"Oh, yes, yes!" exclaimed Jewel. "Mother, wouldn't you like to have a fire while we read?"

Mrs. Evringham assented and Zeke laid the sticks on the andirons and let Jewel touch the lighted match to the little twigs.

"I have the loveliest book, Zeke," she said, when the flames leaped up. "My mother made it for me, and you shall read it if you want to."

"Yes, if Zeke wants to," put in Mrs. Evringham, smiling, "but you'd better find out first if he does. This book was written for little girls with short braids."

"Oh, Zeke and I like a great many of the same things," responded Jewel earnestly.

"That's so, little kid," replied the young coachman, "and as long as you're going to stay here, I'll read anything you say."

"You see," explained Jewel, when he had gone out and closed the door softly, "Zeke said it made his nose tingle every time he thought of anybody else braiding Star's tail, so he's just as glad as anything that we're not going away."

The birch logs snapped merrily, and Anna Belle sat in Jewel's lap watching the leaping flame, while Mrs. Evringham leaned back in her easy chair. The reading had been interrupted yesterday by the arrival of the hour when Mrs. Evringham had engaged to take a drive with her father-in-law. Jewel accompanied them, riding Star, and it was great entertainment to her mother to watch the child's good management of the pretty pony who showed by many shakes of the head and other antics that it had not been explained to his satisfaction why Essex Maid was left out of this good time.

Jewel turned to her mother. "We're all ready now, aren't we? Do go on with the story. I told grandpa about it, driving to the station this morning, and what do you suppose he asked me?" The child drew in her chin. "He asked me if I thought Flossie was going to get well!"

Mrs. Evringham smiled. "Well, we'll see," she replied, opening the story-book. "Where were we?"

"Miss Fletcher had just gone into the house and Flossie had just said she was sinful. She wasn't to blame a bit!"

"Oh, yes, here it is," said Mrs. Evringham, and she began to read:—

* * * * *

As Hazel met Flossie's look, her heart swelled and she wished her mother were here to take care of this little girl who had fallen into such a sad mistake.

"I wish I knew how to tell you better, Flossie, about God being Love," she said; "but He is, and He didn't send you your trouble."

"Perhaps He didn't send it," returned Flossie, "but He thinks it's good for me to have it or else He'd let the doctors cure me. I've had the kindest doctors you ever heard of, and they know everything about people's backs."

"But God will cure you, Himself," said Hazel earnestly.

A strange smile flitted over the sick child's lips. "Oh, no, He won't. I asked Him every night for a year, and over and over all day; but I never ask Him now."

"Oh, Flossie, I know what's the truth, but I don't know how to tell about it very well; but everything about you that seems not to be the image and likeness of God is a lie; and He doesn't see lies, and so He doesn't know these mistakes you're thinking; but He does know the strong, well girl you really are, and He'll help you to know it, too, when you begin to think right."

The sincerity and earnestness in her visitor's tone brought a gleam of interest into Flossie's eyes.

"Just think of being well and running around here with me, and think that God wants you to!"

"Oh, do you believe He does?" returned Flossie doubtfully. "Mother says it will do my soul good for me to be sick, if I can't get well."

Hazel shook her head violently. "You know when Jesus was on earth? Well, he never told anybody it was better for them to be sick. He healed everybody, everybody that asked him, and he came to do the will of his Father; so God's will doesn't change, and it's just the same now."

There was a faint color in Flossie's cheeks. "If I was sure God wanted me to get well, why then I'd know I would some time."

"Of course He does; but you didn't know how to ask Him right."

"Do you?" asked Flossie.

Hazel nodded. "Yes; not so well as mother, but I do know a little, and if you want me to, I'll ask Him for you."

"Well, of course I do," returned Flossie, regarding her visitor with grave, wondering eyes.

In a minute Miss Fletcher, watching the children through a window, beheld something that puzzled her. She saw Hazel roll Flossie's chair back under the elm-tree, and saw her sit down on the grass beside it and cover her eyes with both hands.

"What game are they playing?" she asked herself; and she smiled, well pleased by the friendship that had begun. "I wish health was catching," she sighed. "Little Hazel's a picture. I wonder how long it'll be before she finds out who I am. I wonder what Richard's idea is in not telling her."

She moved about the house a few minutes, and then returned, curiously, to the window. To her surprise matters were exactly as she saw them last. Flossie was, holding both dolls in the wheeled chair, and Hazel was sitting under the tree, her hands over her eyes.

A wave of amazement and amusement swept over Miss Fletcher, and she struck her hands together noiselessly. "I do believe in my heart," she exclaimed, "that Hazel Wright is giving Flossie one of those absent treatments they tell about! Well, if I ever in all my born days!"

There was no more work for Miss Fletcher after this, but a restless moving about the room until she saw Hazel bound up from the ground. Then she hurried out of the house and walked over to the tree. Hazel skipped to meet her, her face all alight. "Oh, Miss Fletcher, Flossie wants to be healed by Christian Science. If my mother was only here she could turn to all the places in the Bible where it tells about God being Love and healing sickness."

Miss Fletcher noted the new expression in the invalid's usually listless face, and the new light in her eyes.

"I'll take my Bible," she answered, "and a concordance. I'll bring them right now. You children go on playing and I'll find all the references I can, and Flossie and I will read them after you've gone."

Miss Fletcher brought her books out under the tree, and with pencil and paper made her notes while the children played with their dolls.

"Let's have them both your children, Flossie," said Hazel.

"Oh, yes," replied Flossie, "and they'll both be sick, and you be the doctor and come and feel their pulses. Aunt Hazel has my doll's little medicine bottles in the house. She'll tell you where they are."

Hazel paused. "Let's not play that," she returned, "because—it isn't fun to be sick and—you're going to be all done with sickness."

"All right," returned Flossie; but it had been her principal play with her doll, Bernice, who had recovered from such a catalogue of ills that it reflected great credit on her medical man.

"I'll be the maid," said Hazel, "and you give me the directions and I'll take the children to drive and to dancing-school and everywhere you tell me."

"And when they're naughty," returned Flossie, "you bring them to me to spank, because I can't let my servants punish my children."

Hazel paused again. "Let's play you're a Christian Scientist," she said, "and you have a Christian Science maid, then there won't be any spanking; because if error creeps in, you'll know how to handle it in mind."

"Oh!" returned Flossie blankly.

But Hazel was fertile in ideas, and the play proceeded with spirit, owing to the lightning speed with which the maid changed to a coachman, and thence to a market-man or a gardener, according to the demands of the situation.

Miss Fletcher, her spectacles well down on her nose, industriously searched out her references and made record of them, her eyes roving often to the white face that was fuller of interest than she had ever seen it.

When four o'clock came, she went back to the house and returned with Flossie's lap table, which she leaned against the tree trunk. This afternoon lunch for the invalid was always accomplished with much coaxing on Miss Fletcher's part, and great reluctance on Flossie's. The little girl took no notice now of what was coming. She was too much engrossed in Hazel's efforts to induce Miss Fletcher's maltese cat to allow Bernice to take a ride on his back.

But when the hostess returned from the house the second time, Hazel gave an exclamation. Miss Fletcher was carrying a tray, and upon it was laid out a large doll's tea-set. It was of white china with gold bands, and when Flossie saw Hazel's admiration, she exclaimed too.

"This was my tea-set when I was a little girl," said Miss Fletcher, "and I was always very choice of it. Twenty years ago I had a niece your age, Hazel, who used to think it was the best fun in the world to come to aunt Hazel's and have lunch off her doll's tea-set. I used to tell her I was going to give it to her little girl if she ever had one."

Both children exclaimed admiringly over the quaint shape of the bowl and pitchers, as Miss Fletcher deposited the tray on her sewing-table.

"When I was a child we didn't smash up handsome toys the way children do nowadays. They weren't so easy to get."

"And didn't your niece ever have a little girl?" asked Flossie, beginning to think that in such a case perhaps these dear dishes might come to be her own.

"Yes, she did," replied Miss Fletcher kindly, and as she looked at the guest's interested little face her eyes were thoughtful. "I shall give them to her some day."

"Has she ever seen them?" asked Hazel.

"Once. I thought you children must be hungry after your games, and you'd like a little lunch."

This idea was so pleasing to Hazel that Flossie caught her enthusiasm.

"You'll be the mistress and pour, Flossie, and I'll be the waitress," she said. "Won't it be the most fun! I suppose, ma'am, you'll like to have the children come to the table?" she added, with sudden respectfulness of tone.

"Yes," returned Flossie, with elegant languor. "I think it teaches them good manners."

And then the waitress forgot herself so far as to hop up and down; for Miss Fletcher, who had returned to the house, now reappeared bearing a tray of eatables and drinkables.

What a good time the children had, with the sewing-table for a sideboard, and the lap-table fixed firmly across Flossie's chair.

"Are you sure you aren't getting too tired, dear?" asked Miss Fletcher of her invalid, doubtfully. "Wouldn't you rather the waitress poured?"

But Flossie declared she was feeling well, and Hazel looked up eagerly into Miss Fletcher's eyes and said, "You know she can't get too tired unless we're doing wrong."

"Oh, indeed!" returned the hostess dryly. "Then there's nothing to fear, for she's doing the rightest kind of right."

When the table was set forth, two small plates heaped high with bread-and-butter sandwiches, a coffee-pot and milk-pitcher of beaten egg and milk, a tea-pot of grape juice, one dish of nuts and another of jelly, the waitress's eyes spoke so eloquently that Flossie mercifully dismissed her on the spot, and invited a lady of her acquaintance to the feast, who immediately drew up a chair with eager alacrity.

Miss Fletcher seated herself again and looked on with the utmost satisfaction, while the children laughed and ate, and when the sandwich plates and coffee-pot and tea-pot and milk-pitcher were all emptied, she replenished them from the well-furnished sideboard.

"My, I wish I was aunt Hazel's real little niece!" exclaimed Flossie, enchanted with pouring from the delightful china.

"So do I wish I was," said Hazel, looking around at her hostess with a smile that was returned.

When Hazel sat down to supper at home that evening, she had plenty to tell of the delightful afternoon, which made Mr. Badger and Hannah open their eyes to the widest, although she did not suspect how she was astonishing them.

"I tell you," she added, in describing the luncheon, "we were careful not to break that little girl's dishes. Oh, I wish you could see them. They're the most be-autiful you ever saw. They're so big—big enough for a child's real ones that she could use herself."

"I judge you did use them," said uncle Dick.

"Well, I guess we did! Miss Fletcher—she wants me to call her aunt Hazel, uncle Dick!" The child looked up to observe the effect of this.

He nodded. "Do it, then. Perhaps she'll forget and give you the dishes."

Hazel laughed. "Well, anyway, she said Flossie'd eaten as much as she usually did in two whole days. Isn't it beautiful that she's going to get well?"

"I wouldn't talk to her too much about it," returned Mr. Badger. "It would be cruel to disappoint her."

This sort of response was new to Hazel. She gazed at her uncle a minute. "That's error," she said at last. "God doesn't disappoint people. They'll get some grown-up Scientist, but until they do, I'll declare the truth for Flossie every day. She'll get well. You'll see.

"I hope so," returned Mr. Badger quietly.

Old Hannah gave her employer a wink over the child's head. "You might ask them to come here by your garden and have lunch some day, Hazel. I'll fix things up real nice for you, even if we haven't got any baby dishes."

"I'd love to," returned Hazel, "and I expect they'd love to come. To-morrow I'm going to take the lesson over and read it with them, and I'm going to read them the 'Quest Flower,' too. It's a story that aunt Hazel will just love. I think she has one in her yard."

"Well, Mr. Richard," said Hannah, after their little visitor had gone to bed, "I see the end of one family feud."

Mr. Badger smiled. "When Miss Fletcher consents to take lunch in my yard, I shall see it, too," he replied.

The next day was pleasant, also, and when Hazel appeared outside her aunt's fence, Flossie was sitting under the tree and waved a hand to her. The white face looked pleased and almost eager, and Miss Fletcher called:—

"Come along, Hazel. I guess Flossie got just tired enough yesterday. She slept last night the best she has since she came."

"Yes," added the little invalid, smiling as her new friend drew near, "the night seemed about five minutes long."

"That's the way it does to me," returned Hazel. She had her doll and some books in her arms, and Miss Fletcher took the latter from her.

"H'm, h'm," she murmured, as she looked over the titles. "You have something about Christian Science here."

"Yes, I thought I'd read to-day's lesson to Flossie before I treated her, and you'd let us take your Bible."

"I certainly will. I can tell you, Hazel, Flossie and I were surprised at the number of good verses and promises I read to her last evening. Anybody ought to sleep well after them."

Hazel looked glad, and Miss Fletcher let her run into the house to bring the Bible, for it was on the hall table in plain sight.

While she was gone the hostess smoothed Flossie's hair. "I can tell you, my dear child, that reading all those verses to you last night made me feel that we don't any of us live up to our lights very well. 'Tisn't always a question of sick bodies, Flossie."

Hazel came bounding back to the elm-tree, and sitting down near the wheeled chair, opened the Bible and two of the books she had brought, and proceeded to read the lesson. Had she been a few years older, she would not have attempted this without a word of explanation to two people to whom many of the terms of her religion were strange, but no doubts assailed her. The little white girl in the wheeled chair was going to get out of it and run around and be happy—that was all Hazel knew, and she proceeded in the only way she knew of to bring it about.

Miss Fletcher's thin lips parted as she listened to the sentences that the child read. She understood scarcely more than Flossie of what they were hearing, excepting the Bible verses, and these did not seem to bear on the case. It was Hazel's perfectly unhesitating certainty of manner and voice which most impressed her, and when the child had finished she continued to stare at her unconsciously.

"Now," said Hazel, returning her look, "I guess I'd better treat her before we begin to play."

Her hostess started. "Oh!" she ejaculated, "then I suppose you'd rather be alone."

"Yes, it's easier," returned the little girl.

Miss Fletcher, feeling rather embarrassed, gathered up her sewing and moved off to the house.

"If I ever in all my born days!" she thought again. "What would Flossie's mother say! Well, that dear little girl's prayers can't do any harm, and if she isn't a smart young one I never saw one. She's Fletcher clear through. I'd like to know what Richard Badger thinks of her. If she'd give him a few absent treatments it might do him some good."

Miss Fletcher's lips took their old grim line as she added this reflection, but she was not altogether comfortable. Her nephew's action in withholding from Hazel the fact that it was her aunt whom she was visiting daily could scarcely have other than a kindly motive; and that long list of Bible references which she had read to Flossie last evening had stirred her strangely. There was one, "He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love," which had followed her to bed and occupied her thoughts for some time.

Now she went actively to work preparing the luncheon which she intended serving to the children later.

"And I'd better fix enough for two laboring men," she thought, smiling.

Later, when she went back under the tree, her little guest skipped up to her. "Oh, aunt Hazel," she said, and the address softened the hostess's eyes, "won't you and Flossie come to-morrow afternoon if it's pleasant, and have lunch beside my garden?"

Miss Fletcher's face changed. This was a contingency that had not occurred to her.

"Oh, do say yes," persisted the child. "I want you to see my flowers, and Flossie says she'd love to. I'll come up and wheel her down there."

"Flossie can go some day, yes," replied aunt Hazel reluctantly; "but I don't visit much. I'm set in my ways."

"Hannah, uncle Dick's housekeeper, suggested it herself," pursued Hazel, thinking that perhaps her own invitation was not sufficient, "and I know uncle Dick would be glad. You said," with sudden remembrance, "that you used to know him."

Miss Fletcher's lips were their grimmest. "I've spanked him many a time," she replied deliberately.

"Spanked him!" repeated the child, staring in still amazement.

The grim lips crept into a grimmer smile. "Not very hard; not hard enough, I've thought a good many times since."

Hazel recovered her breath. "You knew him when he was little?"

"I certainly did. No, child, don't ask me to go out of my tracks. You come here all you will, and if you'll be very careful you can wheel Flossie up to your garden some day. Come, now, are you going to read us that story? I see you brought it."

"Yes, I brought it," replied Hazel, in a rather subdued voice. She saw that there was some trouble between this kind, new friend and her dear uncle Dick, and the discovery astonished her. How could grown-up people not forgive one another?

Miss Fletcher seated herself again with her sewing, and Hazel took the little white book and sat down close by the wheeled chair where Flossie was holding both the dolls.

"Do you like stories?" she asked.

"Yes, when they're not interesting," returned Flossie; "but when mother brings a book and says it's very interesting, I know I shan't like it."

Hazel laughed. "Well, hear this," she said, and began to read:—

* * * * *

Once there was a very rich man whose garden was his chief pride and joy. In all the country around, people knew about this wonderful garden, and many came from miles away to look at the rare trees and shrubs, and the beautiful vistas through which one could gain glimpses of blue water where idle swans floated and added their snowy beauty to the scene. But loveliest of all were the rare flowers, blossoming profusely and rejoicing every beholder.

It was the ambition of the man's life to have the most beautiful garden in the world; and so many strangers as well as friends told him that it was so that he came to believe it and to be certain that no beauty could be added to his enchanting grounds.

One evening, as he was strolling about the avenues, he strayed near the wall and suddenly became aware of a fragrance so sweet and strange that he started and looked about him to find its source. Becoming more and more interested each moment, as he could find only such blossoms as were familiar to him, he at last perceived that the wonderful perfume floated in from the public way which ran just without the wall.

Instantly calling a servant he dispatched him to discover what might be the explanation of this delightful mystery.

The servant sped and found a youth bearing a jar containing a plant crowned with a wondrous pure white flower which sent forth this sweetness.

The servant endeavored to bring the bearer to his master, but the youth steadily refused; saying that, the plant being now in perfection, he was carrying it to the King, for in his possession it would never fade.

The servant returning with this news, the owner of the garden hastened, himself, and overtook the young man. When his eyes beheld the wondrous plant, he demanded it at any price.

"I cannot part with it to you," returned the youth, "but do you not know that at the Public Garden a bulb of this flower is free to all?"

"I never heard of it," replied the man, with excitement, "but to grow it must be difficult. Promise me to return and tend it for me until I possess a plant as beautiful as yours."

"That would be useless," returned the youth, "for every man must tend his own; and as for me, the King will send me on a quest when He has received this flower, and I shall not return this way."

His face was radiant as he proceeded on his road, and the rich man, filled with an exceeding longing, hastened to the Public Garden and made known his desire. He was given a bulb, and was told that the King provided it, but that when the plant was in flower it must be carried to Him.

The man agreed, and returning to his house, rejoicing, caused the bulb to be planted in a beautiful spot set apart for its reception.

But, strangely, as time went on, his gardeners could not make this plant grow. The man sent out for experts, men with the greatest wisdom concerning the ways of flowers, but still the bulb rested passive. The man offered rewards, but in vain. His garden was still famous and praised for its beauty far and near; but it pleased him no longer. His heart ached with longing for the one perfect flower.

One night he lay awake, mourning and restless, until he could bear it no more. He rose, the only waking figure in the sleeping castle, and went out upon a balcony. A flood of moonlight was turning his garden to silver, and suddenly a nightingale's sobbing song pulsed upon the air and filled his heart to bursting.

Wrapping his mantle about him, he descended a winding stair and walked to where, in the centre of the garden, reposed his buried hope. No one was by to witness the breaking down of his pride. He knelt, and swift tears fell upon the earth and moistened it.

What wonder was this? He brushed away the blinding drops, the better to see, for a little green shoot appeared from the brown earth, and, with a leap of the heart, he perceived that his flower had begun to grow.

Every succeeding night, while all in the castle were sleeping, he descended to the garden and tended the plant.

Steadily it grew, and finally the bud appeared, and one fair day it burst into blossom and filled the whole garden with its perfume.

The thought of parting with this treasure tugged at the man's very heartstrings. "The King has many, how many, who can tell! Must I give up mine to Him? Not yet. Not quite yet!"

So he put off carrying away the perfect flower from one day to the next, till at last it fell and was no more worthy.

Ah, then what sadness possessed the man's soul! He vowed that he would never rest until he had brought another plant to perfection and given it to the King; for he realized, at last, that only by giving it, could its loveliness become perennial. Yet he mourned his perfect flower, for it seemed to him no other would ever possess such beauty.

So he set forth again to the Public Garden, but there a great shock awaited him. He found that no second bulb could be vouchsafed to any one. Very sadly he retraced his steps and carefully covered the precious bulb, hoping that when the season of storm and frost was past, there might come to it renewed life.

As soon as the spring began to spread green loveliness again across the landscape, the man turned, with a full heart, to the care and nurture of his hope. The winter of waiting had taught him many a lesson.

He tended the plant now with his own hands, in the light of day and in the sight of all men. Long he cherished it, and steadily it grew, and the man's thought grew with it. Finally the bud appeared, increasing and beautifying daily, until, one morning, a divine fragrance spread beyond the farthest limits of that garden, for the flower had bloomed, spotless, fit for a holy gift; and the man looked upon it humbly and not as his own; but rejoiced in the day of its perfection that he might leave all else behind him, and, carrying it to the King, lay it at His feet and receive His bidding; and so go forth upon his joyous quest.

* * * * *

Hazel closed the book. Flossie was watching her attentively. Miss Fletcher had laid down her sewing and was wiping her spectacles.

"Did you like it?" asked Hazel.

"Yes," replied Flossie. "I wish I knew what that flower was."

"Mother says the blossom is consecration," replied Hazel. "I forget what she said the bulb was. What do you think it was, aunt Hazel?"

"Humility, perhaps," replied Miss Fletcher.

"Yes, that's just what she said! I remember now. Oh, let's go and look at yours and see how the bud is to-day." Hazel sprang up from the grass and carefully pushed Flossie's chair to the flower-bed.

"Oh, aunt Hazel, it's nearly out," she cried, and Miss Fletcher, who had remained behind still polishing her spectacles with hands that were not very steady, felt a little frightened leap of the heart. She wished the Quest Flower would be slower.

The afternoon was as happy a one to the children as that of the day before. They greatly enjoyed the dainty lunch from the little tea-set. They had cocoa to-day instead of the beaten egg and milk; then, just before Hazel went home, Miss Fletcher let her water the garden with a fascinating sprinkler that whirled and was always just about to deluge either the one who managed it or her companions.

In the child's little hands it was a dangerous weapon, but Miss Fletcher very kindly and patiently helped her to use it, for she saw the pleasure she was bestowing.

That night Hazel had a still more joyous tale to tell of her happy day; and uncle Dick went out doors with her after supper and watched her water her own garden bed and listened to her chatter with much satisfaction.

"So Miss Fletcher doesn't care to come and lunch in my yard," he remarked.

"No," returned Hazel, pausing and regarding him. "She says she used to know you well enough to spank you, too."

Mr. Badger laughed. "She certainly did."

"Then error must have crept in," said the little girl, "that she doesn't know you now."

"I used to think it had, when she got after me."

The child observed his laughing face wistfully, "She didn't know how to handle it in mind, did she?"

"Not much. A slipper was good enough for her."

"Well, I don't see what's the matter," said Hazel.

"'Tisn't necessary, little one. You go on having a good time. Everything will come out all right some day."

As Mr. Badger spoke he little knew what activity was taking place in his aunt's thought. Her heart had been touched by the surprising arrival and sympathy of her namesake, and her conscience had been awakened by the array of golden words from the Bible which she had not studied much during late bitter years. The story of the Quest Flower, falling upon her softened heart, seemed to hold for her a special meaning.

In the late twilight that evening she stood alone in her garden, and the opening chalice of the perfect lily shone up at her through the dusk. "Only a couple of days, at most," she murmured, "not more than a couple of days—and humility was the root!"

When it rained the following morning, Flossie looked out the window rather disconsolately; but after dinner her face brightened, for she saw Hazel coming up the street under an umbrella. Tightly held in one arm were Ella and a bundle of books and doll's clothes. Miss Fletcher welcomed the guest gladly, and, after disposing of her umbrella, left the children together and took her sewing upstairs where she sat at work by a window, frowning and smiling by turns at her own thoughts.

Occasionally she looked down furtively at her garden, where in plain view the quest flower drank in the warm rain and opened—opened!

By this time Flossie and Hazel were great friends, and the expression of the former's face had changed even in three days, until one would forget to call her an afflicted child.

They had the lesson and the treatment this afternoon, and then their plays, and when lunch time came the appetites of the pair did not seem to have been injured by their confinement to the house.

When the time came for Hazel to go it had ceased raining, and Miss Fletcher went with her to the gate.

"Oh, oh, aunt Hazel—see the quest flower!" exclaimed the child.

True, a lily, larger, fairer than all the rest, reared itself in stately purity in the centre of the bed.

Miss Fletcher turned and looked at it with startled eyes and pressed her hand to her heart. "Why can't the thing give a body time to make up her mind!" she murmured.

"Oh, to-morrow, to-morrow, aunt Hazel, the sun will come out, and I know just how that lily will look. It will be fit to take to the King!"

Miss Fletcher passed her arm around the child's shoulders. "I want you to stay to supper with us to-morrow night, dear. Ask your uncle if you may."

"Thank you, I'd love to," returned the child, and was skipping off.

"Wait a minute." Miss Fletcher stooped and with her scissors cut a moss rose so full of sweetness that as she handed it to her guest, Hazel hugged her.

The following day was fresh and bright. Flossie's best pink gown and hair ribbons made her look like a rose, herself, to Hazel, as the little girl, very fine in a white frock and ribbons, came skipping up the street. Miss Fletcher stood watching them as her niece ran toward the wheeled chair. The lustre in Flossie's eyes made her heart glad; but the visitor stopped short in the midst of the garden and clasped her hands.

"Oh, aunt Hazel!" she cried, "the quest flower!"

Miss Fletcher nodded and slowly drew near. The stately lily looked like a queen among her subjects.

"Yes, it is to-day," she said softly, "to-day."

She could not settle to her sewing, but, leaving the children together for their work and play, walked up and down the garden paths. Later she went into the house and upstairs and put on her best black silk dress. An unusual color came into her cheeks while she dressed. "The bulb was humility," she murmured over and over, under her breath.

The afternoon was drawing to a close when Miss Fletcher at last moved out of doors and to the elm-tree. "I didn't bring you any lunch to-day," she said to the children, "because I want you to be hungry for a good supper."

"Can we have the dishes just the same?" asked Flossie.

"The owner is going to have them to-night," replied Miss Fletcher, and both the little girls regarded her flushed face with eager curiosity.

"Why, have you asked her?" they cried together.

"Yes."

"Does she know she's going to have the tea-set?"

"No."

"Oh, what fun!" exclaimed Flossie. "I didn't know she was in town."

"Yes, she is in town." Miss Fletcher turned to Hazel and put her hand on the child's shoulder. "We must do everything we can to celebrate taking the flower to the King."

Only then the children noticed that aunt Hazel had her bonnet on.

"Oh," cried the child, bewildered, "are you going to do it?"

Miss Fletcher met her radiant eyes thoughtfully. "If I should take the flower of consecration to the King, Hazel, I know what would be the first errand He would give me to do. I am going to do it now. Go on playing. I shan't be gone long."

She moved away down the garden path and out of the gate.

"What do you suppose it is?" asked Flossie.

"I don't know," returned Hazel simply. "Something right;" and then they took up their dolls again.

Miss Fletcher did not return very soon. In fact, nearly an hour had slipped away before she came up the street, and then a man was with her. As they entered the gate Hazel looked up.

"Uncle Dick, uncle Dick!" she cried gladly, jumping up and running to meet him. He and Miss Fletcher both looked very happy, as they all moved over to Flossie's chair. Mr. Badger's kind eyes looked down into hers and he carried her into the house in his strong arms. Hazel followed, rolling the chair and having many happy thoughts; but she did not understand even a little of the situation until they all went into the dining-room and Flossie was carefully seated in the place the hostess indicated.

The white and gold tea-set was not in front of Flossie this time, but grouped about another place. Hazel's quick eyes noted that there were four seats, but before she had time to speak of the expected child—happy owner of the tea-set—uncle Dick spoke:—

"Where do I go, aunt Hazel?"

The child's eyes widened at such familiarity. "Why, uncle Dick!" she ejaculated.

He and the hostess both regarded her, smiling.

"She is my aunt," he said; and then he lifted Hazel into the chair before the pretty china. "I believe these are your dishes," he added.

The child leaned back in her chair and looked from one to another. Slowly, slowly, she understood. That was the aunt Hazel who gave her the silver spoon. It had been aunt Hazel all the time! She suddenly jumped down from her chair, and, running to Miss Fletcher, hugged her without a word.

Aunt Hazel embraced her very tenderly. "Yes, my lamb," she whispered, "error crept in, but it has crept out again, I hope forever;" and through the wide-open windows came the perfume of the quest flower: pure, strong, beautiful,—radiantly white in the evening glow.

* * * * *

Before Hazel went back to Boston, Flossie's mother came to Miss Fletcher's, and the change for the better in her little daughter filled her with wonder and joy. With new hope she followed the line of treatment suggested by a little girl, and by the time another summer came around, two happy children played again in aunt Hazel's garden, both as free as the sweet air and sunshine, for Divine Love had made Flossie "every whit whole."



CHAPTER X

THE APPLE WOMAN'S STORY

Jewel told her grandfather all about it that day while they were having their late afternoon ride.

"And so the little girl got well," he commented.

"Yes, and could run and play and have the most fun!" returned Jewel joyously.

"And aunt Hazel made it up with her nephew."

"Yes. Why don't people know that all they have to do is to put on more love to one another? Just supposing, grandpa, that you hadn't loved me so much when I first came."

"H'm. It is fortunate that I was such an affectionate old fellow!"

"Mother says we all have to tend the flower and carry it to the King before we're really happy. Do you know it made us both think of the same thing when at last the man did it."

"What was that?"

"Our hymn:—

'My hope I cannot measure, My path in life is free, My Father has my treasure And He will walk with me!'

Don't you begin to love mother very much, grandpa?"

"She is charming."

"Of course she isn't your real relation, the way I am."

"Oh, come now. She's my daughter."

Jewel smiled at him doubtfully. "But so is aunt Madge," she returned.

"Why, Jewel, I'm surprised that any one who looks so tall as you do in a riding skirt shouldn't know more than that! Mrs. Harry Evringham is your mother."

"I never thought of that," returned the child seriously. "Why, so she is."

"That brings her very close, very close, you see," said Mr. Evringham, and his reasoning was clear as daylight to Jewel.

At dinner that evening she was still further reassured. The child did not know that the maids in the house, having been scornfully informed by aunt Madge of Mrs. Harry's business, were prepared to serve her grudgingly, and regard her visit as being merely on sufferance despite Mrs. Forbes's more optimistic view. But the spirit that looked out of Mrs. Evringham's dark eyes and dwelt in the curves of her lips came and saw and conquered. Jewel had won the hearts of the household, and already its unanimous voice, after the glimpses it had had of her mother during two days, was that it was no wonder.

Even the signs of labor that appeared in Julia's pricked fingers made the serenity of her happy face more charming to her father-in-law. She had Jewel's own directness and simplicity, her appreciation and enjoyment of all beauty, the child's own atmosphere of unexacting love and gratitude. Every half hour that Mr. Evringham spent with her lessened his regret at having burned his bridges behind him.

"Now, you mustn't be lonely here, Julia," he said, that evening at dinner. "I have come to be known as something of a hermit by choice; but while Madge and Eloise lived with me, I fancy they had a good many callers, and they went out, to the mild degree that society smiles upon in the case of a recent widow and orphan. They were able to manage their own affairs; but you are a stranger in a strange land. If you desire society, give me a hint and I will get it for you."

"Oh, no, father!" replied Julia, smiling. "There is nothing I desire less."

"Mother'll get acquainted with the people at church," said Jewel, "and I know she'll love Mr. and Mrs. Reeves. They're grandpa's friends, mother."

"Yes," remarked Mr. Evringham, busy with his dinner, "some of the best people in Bel-Air have gone over to this very strange religion of yours, Julia. I shan't be quite so conspicuous in harboring two followers of the faith as I should have been a few years ago."

"No, it is becoming quite respectable," returned Julia, with twinkling eyes.

"Three, grandpa, you have three here," put in Jewel. "You didn't count Zeke."

Mrs. Evringham looked up kindly at Mrs. Forbes, who stood by, as usual, in her neat gown and apron.

"Zeke is really in for it, eh, Mrs. Forbes?" Mr. Evringham asked the question without glancing up.

"Yes, sir, and I have no objection. I'm too grateful for the changes for the better in the boy. If Jewel had persuaded him to be a fire worshiper I shouldn't have lifted my voice. I'd have said to myself, 'What's a little more fire here, so long as there'll be so much less hereafter.'"

Mrs. Evringham laughed and the broker shook his head. "Mrs. Forbes, Mrs. Forbes, I'm afraid your orthodoxy is getting rickety," he said.

"How about your own, father?" asked Julia.

"Oh, I'm a passenger. You see, I know that Jewel will ask at the heavenly gate if I can come in, and if they refuse, they won't get her, either. That makes me feel perfectly safe."

Jewel watched the speaker seriously. Mr. Evringham met her thoughtful eyes.

"Oh, they'll want you, Jewel. Don't you be afraid."

"I'm not afraid. How could I be? But I was just wondering whether you didn't know that you'll have to do your own work, grandpa."

He looked up quickly and met Julia's shining eyes.

"Dear me," he responded, with an uncomfortable laugh. "Don't I get out of it?"

The next morning when Jewel had driven back from the station, and she and her mother had studied the day's lesson, they returned to the ravine, taking the Story Book with them.

Before settling themselves to read, they counted the new wild flowers that had unfolded, and Jewel sprinkled them and the ferns, from the brook.

"Did you ever see anybody look so pretty as Anna Belle does, in that necklace?" exclaimed Jewel, fondly regarding her child, enthroned against the snowy trunk of a little birch-tree. "It isn't going to be your turn to choose the story this morning, dearie. Here, I'll give you a daisy to play with."

"Wait, Jewel, I think Anna Belle would rather see it growing until we go, don't you?"

"Would you, dearie? Yes, she says she would; but when we go, we'll take the sweet little thing and let it have the fun of seeing grandpa's house and what we're all doing."

"It seems such a pity, to me, to pick them and let them wither," said Mrs. Evringham.

"Why, I think they only seem to wither, mother," replied Jewel hopefully. "A daisy is an idea of God, isn't it?"

"Yes, dear."

"When one seems to wither and go out of sight, we only have to look around a little, and pretty soon we see the daisy idea again, standing just as white and bright as ever, because God's flowers don't fade."

"That's so, Jewel," returned the mother quietly.

The child drew a long breath. "I've thought a lot about it, here in the ravine. At first I thought perhaps picking a violet might be just as much error as killing a bluebird; and then I remembered that we pick the flower for love, and it doesn't hurt it nor its little ones; but nobody ever killed a bird for love."

Mrs. Evringham nodded.

"Now it's my turn to choose," began Jewel, in a different tone, settling herself near the seat her mother had taken.

Mrs. Evringham opened the book and again read over the titles of the stories.

"Let's hear 'The Apple Woman's Story,'" said Jewel, when she paused.

Her mother looked up. "Do you remember good old Chloe, who used to come every Saturday to scrub for me? Well, something she told me of an experience she once had, when she was a little girl, put the idea of this tale into my head; and I'll read you

THE APPLE WOMAN'S STORY

Franz and Emilie and Peter Wenzel were little German children, born in America. Their father was a teacher, and his children were alone with him except for the good old German woman, Anna, who was cook and nurse too in the household. She tried to teach Franz and Emilie to be good children, and took great care of Peter, the sturdy three-year-old boy, a fat, solemn baby, whose hugs were the greatest comfort his father had in the world.

Franz and Emilie had learned German along with their English by hearing it spoken in the house, and it was a convenience at times, for instance, when they wished to say something before the colored apple woman which they did not care to have her understand; but the apple woman did not think they were polite when they used an unknown tongue before her.

"Go off fum here," she would say to them when they began to talk in German. "None o' that lingo round my stand. Go off and learn manners." And when Franz and Emilie found she was in earnest they would ask her to forgive them in the politest English they were acquainted with; for they were very much attached to the clean, kind apple woman, whose stand was near their father's house. They admired her bright bandana headdress and thought her the most interesting person in the world. As for the apple woman, she had had so many unpleasant experiences with teasing children that she did not take Franz and Emilie into her favor all at once, but for some time accepted their pennies and gave them their apples when they came to buy, watching them suspiciously with her sharp eyes to make sure that they were not intending to play her any trick.

But even before they had become regular customers she decided under her breath that they were "nice chillen;" and when she came to know them better her kind heart overflowed to them.

One morning as they smiled and nodded to her on the way to school, she called out and beckoned.

"Apples for the little baskets?"

"Not to-day," answered Emilie.

She beckoned to them again with determination, and the children approached.

"We forgot to brush our teeth last night," explained Franz, "so we haven't any penny."

"I forgot it," said Emilie, "and Franz didn't remind me, so we neither of us got it. That's the way Anna makes us remember."

"Never you mind, honey, here's apples for love," replied the colored woman, holding up two rosy beauties.

The children looked at one another and shook their heads.

"Thank you," said Emilie, "but we can't. Papa said the last time you gave them to us that if we ate your apples without paying for them we mustn't come to visit you any more."

"Now think o' that!" exclaimed the apple woman when the children had gone on. She was much touched and pleased to know that Franz and Emilie would rather come and sit and talk to her and listen to her stories than to eat her apples.

She was right; they were nice children; but they had their naughty times, and good old Anna was often greatly troubled by them. She felt her responsibility of the whole family very deeply, and tried to talk no more German. These children must grow up to be good Americans, and she must not hold them back. It was very hard for the poor woman to remember always to speak English, and funny broken English it was; so that little Peter, hearing it all the time, had a baby talk of his own that was very comical and different from other children. He talked about the "luckle horse" he played with, and the "boomps" he got when he fell down, and he was very brave and serious, as became a fat baby boy who had to take care of himself a great deal.