ks of snowy Eucharist lilies. I
need n't tell my own mother that I did n't stop to think twice; I just
stepped up to her and said, 'I should like to give you my flowers,
please. I don't need them, and I am sure they are just sweet and
lovely enough for the place you want to lay them.'

"The tears came into her eyes,--she was just ready to cry at anything,
you know,--and she took them at once, and said, squeezing my hand very
tightly, 'I will take them, dear. The grave of my own, and my only,
little girl lies far away from this,--the snow is falling on it
to-day,--but whenever I cannot give the flowers to her, I always find
the resting-places of other children, and lay them there. I know it
makes her happy, for she was born on Christmas Day, and she was full of
the Christmas spirit, always thinking of other people, never of
herself.'

"She did look so pale, and sad, and sweet, that I began to think of you
without your troublesome Polly, or your troublesome Polly without you;
and she was pleased with the flowers and glad that I understood, and
willing to love anything that was a girl or that was young,--oh, you
know, mamacita,--and so I began to cry a little, too; and the first
thing I knew I kissed her, which was most informal, if not positively
impertinent. But she seemed to like it, for she kissed me back again,
and I ran and jumped on the car, and here I am! You will have to eat
your dinner without any flowers, madam, for you have a vulgarly strong,
healthy daughter, and the poor lady in black has n't."

This was Polly's first impression of "the lady in black," and thus
began an acquaintance which was destined before many months to play a
very important part in Polly's fortunes and misfortunes.

What the lady in black thought of Polly, then and subsequently, was
told at her own fireside, where she sat, some six weeks later, chatting
over an after-dinner cup of coffee with her brother-in-law.

"Take the armchair, John," said Mrs. Bird; "for I have 'lots to tell
you,' as the young folks say. I was in the Children's Hospital about
five o'clock to-day. I have n't been there for three months, and I
felt guilty about it. The matron asked me to go upstairs into the
children's sitting-room, the one Donald and I fitted up in memory of
Carol. She said that a young lady was telling stories to the children,
but that I might go right up and walk in. I opened the door softly,
though I don't think the children would