and more discouraged it grew. The winter had been
dark and rainy; the ground was so wet that its roots felt slippery and
uncomfortable; there was some disagreeable moss growing on its smooth
branches; the sun almost never shone; the birds came but seldom; and at
last the lilac-bush said, "I will give up: I am not going to bud or
bloom or do a single thing for Easter this year! I don't care if my
trunk does n't grow, nor my buds swell, nor my leaves grow larger! If
Hester wants her room shaded, she can pull the curtain down; and the
lame girl can"--_do without_, it was going to say, but it did n't
dare--oh, it did n't dare to think of the poor little lame girl without
any comforting flowers; so it stopped short and hung its head.

Six or eight weeks ago Hester and her mother went out one morning to
see the lilac-bush.

"It does n't look at all as it ought," said Hester, shaking her head
sadly. "The buds are very few, and they are all shrunken. See how
limp and flabby the stems of the leaves look!"

"Perhaps it is dead," said Hester's mother, "or perhaps it is too old
to bloom."

"I like that!" thought the lilac-bush.

"I 'm not dead and I 'm not dying, though I 'd just as lief die as to
keep on working in this dark, damp, unpleasant winter, or spring, or
whatever they call it; and as for being past blooming, I would just
like to show her, if it was n't so much trouble! How old does she
think I am, I wonder? There is n't a thing in this part of the city
that is over ten years old, and I was n't planted first, by any means!"

And then Hester said, "My darling, darling lilac-bush! Easter won't be
Easter without it; and lame Jenny leans out of her window every day as
I come from school, and asks, 'Is the lilac budding?'"

"Oh dear!" sighed the little bush. "I wish she would n't talk that
way; it makes me so nervous to have Jenny asking questions about me!
It starts my sap circulating, and I shall grow in spite of me!"

"Let us see what we can do to help it," said Hester's mother. "Take
your trowel and dig round the roots first."

"They 'll find a moist and sticky place and be better able to
sympathize with me," thought the lilac.

"Then put in some new earth, the richest you can get, and we 'll snip
off all the withered leaves and dry twigs, and see if it won't take a
new start."

"I shall have to, I believe, whether I like it or not, if they make
such a fuss about me!" thought the lilac-bush. "It see