enough to hold the roof up, you don't ask if it's made of marble
or stone."

"Are common things bad things?" asked Lilac suddenly.

Joshua took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at her in some
surprise.

"Common things--eh?" he repeated.

"Yes, Uncle," said Lilac hesitatingly, and trying to think of how to
make it clear. But she could only add:

"They call the pigs common too."

"Well, as to pigs," said Joshua, "I wish they was commoner still. I
don't despise a bit of bacon myself. I call that a good thing anyhow.
When one comes to look at it," he continued after a few puffs at his
pipe, "the best things of all is common. The things as is under our
feet and nigh to our hand and easy to be got. There's the flowers now--
the common ones which grow so low as any child can pick 'em in the
fields, daisies and such. There's the blue sky as we can all see, poor
as well as rich. There's rain and sunshine and air and a heap else as
belongs to all alike, and which we couldn't do without. The common
things is the best things, don't you make any mistake about that.
There's your own name now--Lilac. It's a common bush lilac is; it grows
every bit as well in a little bit of garden nigh the road as in a grand
park, and it hasn't no rare colours to take the eye. And yet on a
sunshiny day after rain the folks passing'll say, `Whatever is it as
smells so beautiful?' Why it's just the common lilac bush. You ought
to be like that in a manner of speaking--not to try and act clever and
smart so as to make folks stare, but to be good-tempered and peaceful
and loving, so as they say when you leave 'em, `What made the place so
pleasant? Why, it was Lilac White. She ain't anything out of the
common, but we miss her now she's gone--'"

The frequent mention of her name reminded Lilac of something she wanted
to say, and she broke in suddenly:

"Why, I've never thought to thank you, Uncle, for all that bloom you got
me on May Day. What a long way back it do seem!"

Joshua looked perplexed.

"What's the child talking on?" he said. "I didn't get no flowers."

"Whoever in all the world could it a been then?" said Lilac slowly.
"You're sure you haven't forgotten, Uncle Joshua?"

"Sartain sure!"

"You didn't ask no one to get it?"

"Never mentioned a word to a livin' bein'." Lilac stared thoughtfully
at the cobbler, who had now gone back to his little shed and was hard at
work.

"P'r'aps, then," she said, "'twarn'