, "let us come out and talk and look at
things."

They went out and he began to admire her orderly garden and to tell
her why this plant had done well and that one had failed. He did not
speak of the blue daffodil, he thought he could better ask about that
a little later. She did not speak of it either by name; he and it were
so inseparably connected in her mind.

"Come along," she said, when he stopped to look into a tulip to see if
its centre was as truly black as it should have been. "Come and see
it."

He followed her obediently, but asked what it was he was to see.

"The blue daffodil, of course," she said.

He stopped dead. "You have got it here?" he exclaimed. "You have not
sold it?"

"Certainly not."

"But why--why?" he stared at her in amazement. "You wanted money, it
was for that you wanted the bulb, to sell; you told me so. Do you not
want money now?"

"Oh, yes," Julia said; "but that is an incurable disease hereditary in
our family."

"You do want money?" he inquired mystified. "This inheritance is
small, not enough? Why, then, did you not sell the bulb?"

Julia shrugged her shoulders. "I could not very well," she said.

"But why not? You thought to do so at one time; your intention was to
sell it if you had--"

"Stolen it? Yes, that is quite true, and it would not have mattered
then. If I had stolen it I might as well have sold it; one
dishonourable act feels lonely without another; it generally begets
another to keep itself company."

Joost looked at her uncomprehendingly. "But why," he persisted,
clinging to the one thing he did understand, "why did you not sell it?
It was for that I gave it to you, to do with as you pleased; I knew
you would do only what was right and necessary."

Julia could have smiled a little at this last word; it seemed as if
even Joost had learnt to temper right with necessity to suit her
dealings, but she only said, "That was one reason why I could not sell
it. You expected me to do right, so I was obliged to do it; faith
begets righteousness as dishonour begets dishonour."

"I do not quite understand," he began, but she cut him short.

"No," she said; "we always found it difficult to make things quite
plain, it is no use trying now. Come and see the daffodil, you will
understand that, at all events, and better than I do. It is not quite
fully out yet, but very nearly, and--please don't be disappointed--it
is not a real true blue daffodil at all."

She took