Whatever I feel prompted to do I do, I can't help doing it, and it is not till it is done that I begin to know whether it was right or wrong.

You sat up and worried yourself for me, and this is how I repay you--I am a bad girl! But you shall not go hungry--no, you shall not." "Never mind; never mind," said the elder, and she stroked her sister's brown hair with a loving hand.
But as she did so she came upon the violets fastened among the shining tresses.

Her lips quivered and her weary expression changed as she touched the flowers and glanced at the empty saucer in which she had carefully placed them the clay before.

Irene at once perceived the change in her sister's face, and thinking only that she was surprised at her pretty adornment, she said gaily: "Do you think the flowers becoming to me ?" Klea's hand was already extended to take the violets out of the brown plaits, for her sister was still kneeling before her, but at this question her arm dropped, and she said more positively and distinctly than she had yet spoken and in a voice, whose sonorous but musical tones were almost masculine and certainly remarkable in a girl: "The bunch of flowers belongs to me; but keep it till it is faded, by mid-day, and then return it to me." "It belongs to you ?" repeated the younger girl, raising her eyes in surprise to her sister, for to this hour what had been Klea's had been hers also.

"But I always used to take the flowers you brought home; what is there special in these ?" "They are only violets like any other violets," replied Klea coloring deeply.