rose
plant--they were equally disdainful of carnations. Patricia favored
roses, and when the florist offered them a bargain in some rather wilted
Lady Ursulas, she wanted to buy them and put them in salt and water
overnight, to revive them. Finally they decided upon a bunch of violets,
which sadly depleted their several allowances. And Jerry attached her
verses, painstakingly printed on a sheet of azure-blue notepaper in red
ink. "Blue's for the spirit, you know, and the red ink is heart's blood.
Listen, girls, isn't this too beautiful for words?" Gyp read in a tragic
voice:

"Only to love thee, I seek nothing more,
No greater boon do I ask,
Only to serve thee o'er and o'er,
And in thy smile to bask.

"Only to hear thy sweet voice in my ear,
Though thy words be not spoken for me,
Only to see the lovelight in thy eyes,
The love of eternity.

"They're _wonderful_, Jerry! And so sad, too."

"Do they sound like a lover?" asked Jerry anxiously.

"_Exactly_," declared Pat, solemnly. "Oh, _won't_ it be fun to see her
open it? And she'll think, of course, that it comes from the
black-and-white man."

"And we must each one of us pledge to keep our eyes open for the
creature."

"Think of it, girls--if we could make Miss Gray happy again it would be
something we could remember when we're old ladies. Mother told me once
that things we do for other people to make them happy come back to us
with interest."

In the English class, on the following day, four girls sat very demurely
in the back row, their eyes riveted on their books. When presently there
was a knock at the door (Gyp had timed carefully the arrival of the
messenger), Pat Everett exclaimed, "my goodness" aloud, and Jerry
dropped her book to the floor. But their agitation passed unnoticed;
Miss Gray's attention was fixed upon the little square box that was
brought to her.

Jerry had a moment of panic. She scribbled on the top of a page in her
text-book: "What if she's angry?" To which Gyp replied: "If _your_ life
was empty, wouldn't you jump at a crumb?"

Only for a moment was the machinelike precision of the English class
broken. Miss Gray untied the cord, and peeped under the cover. The
girls, watching from the back row, saw a pink flush sweep from her small
nose to the roots of her hair, then fade, leaving her very white. Then:

"Please continue, Miss Chase."

When the class was dismissed even Gyp had not the courage to