irst day I saw you I have
wanted to have you to love and care for."

A gleam of surprise crossed Stella's face. "How very kind of you!" she
said.

"Oh no, dear. It was your own doing. You are so beautiful," murmured the
surgeon's wife. "And I knew that you were the same all through--beautiful
to the very soul."

"Oh, don't say that!" Sharply Stella broke in upon her. "Don't think it!
You don't know me in the least. You--you have far more beauty of soul
than I have, or can ever hope to have now."

Mrs. Ralston shook her head.

"But it is so," Stella insisted. "I--What am I?" A tremor of passion
crept unawares into her low voice. "I am a woman who has been denied
everything. I have been cast out like Eve, but without Eve's
compensations. If I had been given a child to love, I might have had
hope. But now I have none--I have none. I am hard and bitter,--old
before my time, and I shall never now be anything else."

"Oh, darling, no!" Very swiftly Mrs. Ralston checked her. "Indeed you
are wrong. We can make of our lives what we will. Believe me, the barren
woman can be a joyful mother of children if she will. There is always
someone to love."

Stella's lips were quivering. She turned her face aside. "Life is very
difficult," she said.

"It gets simpler as one goes on, dear," Mrs. Ralston assured her gently.
"Not easy, oh no, not easy. We were never meant to make an easy-chair of
circumstance however favourable. But if we only press on, it does get
simpler, and the way opens out before us as we go. I have learnt that at
least from life." She paused a moment, then bent suddenly down and spoke
into Stella's ear. "May I tell you something about myself--something I
have never before breathed to any one--except to God?"

Stella turned instantly. "Yes, tell me!" she murmured back, clasping
closely the thin hand that had so tenderly stroked her own.

Mrs. Ralston hesitated a second as one who pauses before making a
supreme effort. Then under her breath she spoke again. "Perhaps it will
not interest you much. I don't know. It is only this. Like you, I
wanted--I hoped for--a child. And--I married without loving--just for
that. Stella, my sin was punished. The baby came--and went--and there
can never be another. I thought my heart was broken at the time. Oh, it
was bitter--bitter. Even now--sometimes--" She stopped herself. "But no,
I needn't trouble you with that. I only want to tell you that very
beautiful flowers bloom