med, a strange, strange flower, for on every stem hung a row of
little bleeding hearts.

"One day the Princess Olga, seeing them from her window, went down to
them in wonderment. 'What do you here?' she cried, for in her lonely
forest life she had learned all speech of bird and beast and plant.

"'We bloom for love's sweet sake,' they answered. 'We have sprung from
the old flax-spinner's gift,--the necklace thou didst break and scatter.
From her heart's best blood she gave it, and her heart still bleeds to
think she is forgotten.'

"Then they began to tell the story of the old dame's sacrifices, all the
seventy times seven that she had made for the sake of the maiden, and
Olga grieved as she listened, that she could have been so ungrateful.
Then she brought the prince to listen to the story of the strange,
strange flowers, and when he had heard, together they went to the lowly
cottage and fetched the old flax-spinner to the castle, there to live
out all her days.

"And still the flowers that we call bleeding hearts bloom on by cottage
walls and castle gardens, reminding us how often 'tis through hearts
that bleed for love's sweet sake we reach our happiness."

Betty came to the end of the story and paused, smiling, while the Little
Colonel, who had listened with one arm around her mother's neck, waited
for what was to follow.

Mrs. Sherman took up a little box that had been lying in her lap under
the sewing, and lifted something out of the jeweller's cotton it
contained.

"Elizabeth," she asked, motioning the child toward her, "do you suppose
the Princess Olga's necklace was anything like this?" What she held up
was a string of little gold beads.

"Oh, they are almost like mine," cried Lloyd, fingering them admiringly.
Before Betty realised what was coming, she found them clasped on her
neck, and Mrs. Sherman was saying: "It isn't made out of my heart's
blood by any means, and it will not lead you to any Prince Charming, but
it is my privilege as godmother to lay a spell on them. Let's see how it
will work. Go over to that little trunk of yours in the corner, dear,
and lay your hand on it. Now shut your eyes while you repeat Olga's
charm, and see what will happen."

Delighted by this dramatising of the old tale, Betty scrambled to her
feet, ran across the room, and laid her hand on top of the shabby little
leather trunk. Shutting her eyes so tight that her nose wrinkled up like
a kitten's, while her mouth smi