plants and grass. How hard Iris had tried to make that
garden pretty and pleasant to look upon! With hope ever new, and always
to be disappointed, she sowed seeds in it, and spent her pennies in
roots for it, and raked and dug and watered it. In vain; nothing would
grow but some spindly London pride and scarlet geraniums. And indeed
this was not surprising, for the garden had many things against it in
the shape of poor soil, scorching sun, and numerous sparrows, not to
mention boys and cats. A constant warfare was going on in it, for the
cats lay in wait for the sparrows, and the boys were always on the watch
for the cats, with jugs of water, traps of string, and other cunning
stratagems. There was not much chance for the flowers, and even the
turf was worn away in mangy patches by the feet of eager and excited
combatants. At the end of it, built against the wall, there was an
erection of old wire and packing-cases, in which Max and Clement kept
rabbits, white rats, and a squirrel. A strange mixed scent of animals
and decayed cabbage-leaves was sometimes wafted into the house from this
in the summer.

"Perhaps it would be better to shut the window," Mrs Graham would say
to Iris. Iris thought it would be better for the boys not to keep
rabbits; but to any hint of this kind her mother's answer was always the
same: "They may be a little disagreeable sometimes, dear, but I couldn't
deprive the poor boys of one of their few amusements."

Her words came into Iris's mind this evening as her eye rested on the
unsuccessful garden, and she bent over her work again with a sigh.

Always someone else to think of, someone else to work for, never a
little bit of pleasure that was quite her own. How could she be happy?
And if she were not happy how could she be contented? It was hard to
have nothing pretty to look at. Some people lived in the midst of
pretty things; there was her godmother, for instance, who never saw
anything ugly or disagreeable near her, but everything that was pleasant
and beautiful. People who lived in places like Paradise Court could be
patient, and kind, and gentle without any difficulty, but in Albert
Street--A sharp scream from the other side of the folding doors, the
sound of something thrown, and then a volley of angry sobs and cries.
Iris started up and rushed into the next room; she had left her two
little sisters there happily at play, but she now found a very different
state of things. Do