Ellen's hands, outspread over the roses, dropped to her side.

"I would have thought he had more sense," she said sulkily. "If he'd
money to burn he should have sent this lot to the infirmary."

"Och, Ellen, are you not pleased?"

"What's the man thinking of to fill us up with flowers as if we were an
Episcopal church on Easter Sunday?"

"Ellen, you've no notion of manners. Gentlemen often send flowers to
ladies they admire. When your Aunt Bessie and I were girls many's the
fine present of flowers we got from officers at the Castle."

"I've neither time nor taste for such things. It makes me feel like a
hospital. He'll be sending us new-laid eggs and lint bandages next. The
man's mad."

"Ellen, you're a queer girl," complained. Mrs. Melville. "If this
argy-bargying about votes for women makes you turn up your nose at bonny
flowers that a decent fellow sends you I'm sorry for you--it's just
tempting Providence to scorn good mercies like this. I'll away and take
the fish-pie out of the oven."

It was strange that as soon as her mother had left the room she began to
feel differently about the roses. Of course they were very beautiful;
and they were contenting in a quite magic way, for besides satisfying
her longing for pretty things, they seemed to have deprived of urgency
all her other longings, even including her desire for a vote, for
eminence of some severe sort, for an income of three hundred pounds a
year (which was the most she believed a person with a social conscience
could enjoy), for a perpetual ticket for the Paterson Concerts at the
MacEwan Hall, and for perfect self-possession. She felt as if these
things were already hers, or as if they were coming so certainly that
she need not fret about them any more than one frets about a parcel that
one knows has been posted, or concerning some desires, as if it did not
matter so much as she had thought whether she got them or not.
Especially that dream of being one of a company of men and women whose
bodies should be grave as elms with dignity and whose words should be
bright as butterflies with wit struck her as being foolish. It was as
idle as wanting to be born in the days of Queen Elizabeth. What she
really wanted was a friend. She had felt the need of one since Rachael
Wing went to London. Surely Richard Yaverland meant to be her friend,
since he sent flowers to her. But she wished the gift could have been
made secretly, and if he came to pay a visit she s