like it, dear?" she asked again. "I thought you would have
been pleased. The blue on that silvery white straw looks so pretty,
I think. Don't you?"

Mona nodded, but did not speak. "Mona, dear, what is it? Tell me what's
wrong? I am sure there is something. Perhaps I can help you, if I know."

Tears had been near Mona's eyes for some moments, and the kindness in her
mother's face and voice broke down all restraints. Tossing the hat one
way and the wreath another, Mona ran into Lucy's arms, sobbing bitterly.

"Oh--I must tell. I can't keep it in any longer! Oh, mother, I've got a
wreath already, I bought it myself, and I hate it--oh, I hate it!
I--I can't tell you how bad I've felt about it ever since I got it!"
And then the whole of the miserable story came pouring out. She kept
nothing back. She told of her keeping the eighteenpence, of her dream, of
her mortification in the shop. "And--and it seemed as if my dream came
true," she said, when presently the worst was told. "I was so crazy for
the forget-me-nots that I couldn't get, that I never thought anything of
the wallflowers close beside me, and then, when I had got forget-me-nots,
I was disappointed; and when I lost the wallflowers, I began to think all
the world of them!"

Lucy, with her head resting against Mona's, as she held her in her arms,
smiled sadly. "It's the same with all of us, dear. We're so busy looking
into our neighbour's garden patch, envying them what they've got, that we
don't see what we've got in our own, and, as like as not, trample it down
with reaching up to look over the wall, and lose it altogether. Now, pick
up your hat and your flowers and try to get all the pleasure you can out
of them. I hoped they'd have brought you such a lot. Or would you rather
change the wreath for another?"

But Mona would not hear of that. "Oh, no, I wanted blue forget-me-nots,
and these are lovely. I'd rather have them than anything, thank you,
mother."

"You couldn't have anything prettier," said Peter Carne, rousing suddenly
from his nap.

Lucy laughed. "Now, father, whatever do you know about it! You go to
sleep again. Mona and I are talking about finery." She was busy undoing
a large parcel of drapery. "I've got the print here for your frocks,"
she turned to Mona again. "I'd have liked to have had both dark blue,
but I thought you might fancy a pink one, so I got stuff for one of each.
There, do you like them?"

"Like the