lowers for the sick people
and vegetables for those who haven't any place to raise their own and
no money to buy them. That's what Saint John is going to do with all
they don't use at the parsonage. I'd make a park of my back yard and let
dirty children play there so's they would not get run over in the
street; I'd--oh, there are so many things I'd do to enjoy myself!"

Peace paused for breath, the well of her imagination run dry, but her
face was so radiant that instinctively her listener knew these were not
idle words, though she could not keep the hard tone out of her voice as
she answered, "Ah, that is easy enough to say, but--wait until you are
where I am now, and I think you will find it lots harder to practice
what you preach. You will turn your face to the wall, say good-bye to
those who you thought were your friends, build a high fence around
yourself and hide--_hide_ from the world and everything!"

"Oh, no," Peace protested, shuddering at the picture she had drawn. "I
should _die_ if I couldn't see the sun and flowers and kind faces of the
folks I love. But--it--would be--awfully hard _never_ to walk again."

"Hard? It is _torture_!" She had forgotten that she was talking to a
mere child, one who could not understand what it was to have dearest
ambitions thwarted, one who could not even know yet what it was to have
ambitions. "I had dreamed of being a great singer some day--"

"Oh, do you sing?" cried Peace, who was passionately fond of music in
whatever guise it came.

"Masters said I could--"

"Then please sing for me. I can only whistle, and then folks say,

"'Whistling girls and crowing hens
Always come to some bad ends.'

"I'd like awfully much to hear you sing."

"Oh, I don't sing any more! That is all past now; but oh, how I loved
it! We were going to Europe, Aunt Pen and I, and when we came back after
months and years of study, I thought I should be a--Jenny Lind, perhaps.
I thought of it by day, I dreamed of it by night. It was _everything_ to
me. And then--my horse fell--and here I am."

"Was it long ago?" whispered Peace, strangely stirred by the passionate
words of the girl before her.

"Five years."

"And you've been here ever since?"

"Ever since."

Oh, the hopelessness of the words, the bitterness of the face!

Involuntarily Peace turned her eyes away, and as her glance fell upon
the delicate bloom of the lilac bushes beside her, she began to hum
under her breath, "Oh