blue eyes flashed wide in surprise, and their owner demanded
sharply, "Why did you come this time of day? I have not sent for you."

"I didn't say you had. I came 'cause I thought you'd be glad to see me,
but if you ain't, I'll go straight home again and eat my picnic all
alone, and plant my flowers in my garden again. You don't have to have
them if you don't want 'em."

She whirled on her heel and stamped angrily across the grass toward the
gate, too hurt to keep the tears from her eyes, and too proud to let her
companion see how deeply wounded she was.

Astonished at this flash of gunpowder, the lame girl cried contritely,
"Oh, don't go away, Peace! I didn't mean to be cross to you. This has
been _such_ a hard week, dear, I hardly know what I am doing half the
time."

"Is the pain so bad?" whispered Peace tenderly, dropping on her knees
before the sufferer, having already forgotten her own grievance in her
longing to ease and comfort the poor, aching back.

"It is better now," answered the girl, smiling wanly at the sympathetic
face bending over her. "The heat always makes it worse, but I do believe
it is growing cooler now. Feel the breeze? What have you brought me? A
picnic lunch!"

"Yes--my strawberry pie--"

"Did Mrs. Strong know?"

"She made the pie all for my very own self to do just what I please
with. Don't you like strawberry pie?" Peace paused in her task of
unpacking the basket to look up questioningly at the face among the
pillows.

"Oh, yes, dear, I am very fond of it, and it is sweet of you to share
yours with me. I shall put my half away for tea."

"Oh, you mustn't do that," protested the ardent little picnicker,
passing her a plate of generously thick, ragged looking sandwiches,
spread with great chunks of butter fresh from the ice-box, and filled
with delicate slices of pink ham. "I want you to eat it with me. This is
a 'specially good pie, and Elspeth can 'most beat Faith when it comes to
dough. Mrs. Deacon Hopper sent us the ham--a whole one, all boiled and
baked with sugar and cloves. It's simply _fine_! The lilacs I took the
deacon did the work all right. He was so tickled that he got over being
grumpy, and calls Saint John a promising preacher now. Please taste the
sandwiches. I know you'll like them even if I didn't get the bread cut
real even and nice. Then after we get through eating, I'll plant the
pansies."

"Pansies!" She stared past the brown head bobbing over the hamper, to