I don't know why she had n't brought some with her,--she looked rich enough to buy a whole conservatory; perhaps she had n't expected to drive there.
However, Milly Foster had given me a whole armful of beautiful flowers,--you know she has a 'white garden:' there were white sweet peas, Lamarque roses, and three stalks of snowy Eucharist lilies.

I need n't tell my own mother that I did n't stop to think twice; I just stepped up to her and said, 'I should like to give you my flowers, please.

I don't need them, and I am sure they are just sweet and lovely enough for the place you want to lay them.' "The tears came into her eyes,--she was just ready to cry at anything, you know,--and she took them at once, and said, squeezing my hand very tightly, 'I will take them, dear.

The grave of my own, and my only, little girl lies far away from this,--the snow is falling on it to-day,--but whenever I cannot give the flowers to her, I always find the resting-places of other children, and lay them there.

I know it makes her happy, for she was born on Christmas Day, and she was full of the Christmas spirit, always thinking of other people, never of herself.' "She did look so pale, and sad, and sweet, that I began to think of you without your troublesome Polly, or your troublesome Polly without you; and she was pleased with the flowers and glad that I understood, and willing to love anything that was a girl or that was young,--oh, you know, mamacita,--and so I began to cry a little, too; and the first thing I knew I kissed her, which was most informal, if not positively impertinent.