ch time to tend
them."

"I shouldn't think any one could have less time than you."

Aunt Jessica laughed. "Oh, I make time!"

Elliott picked up the flat green basket, lifted the shears she found
lying in it, and went hesitatingly up and down the borders. "What
shall I pick?"

"Anything. Suit yourself. Make the basket as pretty as you can. If you
pick here and there, the borders won't show where you cut from them."

Mother Jess gathered up gloves and tools, and went away, tugging her
basket of weeds. Elliott, left behind, surveyed the borders
critically. To cut without letting it appear that she had cut was
evidently what Aunt Jessica wanted. She reached in and snipped off a
spire of larkspur from the very back of the border, then stood back to
see what had happened. No, if one hadn't known the stalk had been
there, one wouldn't now know it was gone. The thing could be done,
then. Cautiously she selected a head of white phlox. The result of
that operation also was satisfactory.

Up and down the flowery path she went, snipping busily. On the stalks
of larkspur and phlox she laid a mass of pink snapdragons and white
candytuft, tucking in here and there sprays of just-opening
baby's-breath to give a misty look to the basket. A bunch of English
daisies came next; they blossomed so fast one didn't have to pick and
choose among them; one could just cut and cut. And oughtn't there to
be pansies? "Pansies--that's for thoughts." Those wonderful purple
ones with a sprinkling of the yellow--no, yellow would spoil the color
scheme of the basket. These white beauties were just the thing. How
lovely it all looked, blue and white and pink and purple!

But there wasn't much fragrance. Eye and nose searched hopefully.
Heliotrope!--just a spray or two. There, now it was perfect. Anybody
would be glad to see a basket like that coming. Only, she did wish
some one else were to carry it, or else that she knew the people. It
might not be so bad if she knew the people. Why shouldn't Laura or
Trudy take it? Elliott walked very slowly up to the house, debating
the question. A week ago she wouldn't have debated; she would have
said, "Oh, I can't possibly." Or so she thought.

"How beautiful!" said Aunt Jessica's voice from the kitchen window.
"You have made an exquisite thing, dear."

Elliott rested the basket on the window ledge and surveyed it proudly.
"Isn't it lovely? And I don't think cutting this has hurt the borders
a bit."

"