There were some marvellous ghost stories in those days, and haunted houses as well. The society of Psychical Research would have found many queer things if it had existed at that time. The sailors spun strange yarns over the power we call telepathy now. Many of the families had a retired captain or disabled first mate, or supercargo, who had seen mysterious appearances and heard warning voices. And it recalled to the little girl some of the stories she had heard in India that she pieced out of vague fragments. Maybe there were curious influences no one could explain. Elizabeth improved a little. She had been moved from cot to bed, but now they packed her in a big chair and pushed her over to the window where she could see the vegetable garden and the chicken yard. They had not had very good luck at the hatching this season. The hens had missed Elizabeth's motherly care. She had trained them to an amusing habit of obedience, and the little chickens were her delight. Was she never to be out among them again? One day Cynthia came up with two roses in a glass, most exquisite ones at that. "Cousin Elizabeth," she began, "do you remember the little rosebush you put in my garden last summer? We thought it would die. It came out beautifully in the spring and these are the first roses that bloomed. I thought you ought to have them. Are you never going to get well enough to walk around the garden? Cousin Eunice has kept it so nice." Elizabeth Leverett's heart was touched and she swallowed over a lump in her throat. She had taken up the rose from a place where it had been smothered with those of larger growth and given it to the child who had begged for "a garden of her very own." She had not supposed it would live. And that Cynthia should bring her the firstfruits! "I'm obliged to you," she returned huskily. "They are very beautiful." And she wondered the child had not given them to Chilian. "I wish you liked a few flowers every day," the little girl said wistfully. "Well--I might;" reluctantly. "They are so lovely. The world is so beautiful. It's very hard to be ill in summer, in winter one wouldn't mind it so much. But I am glad you can sit up." Was it tears that Elizabeth winked away? She had many serious thoughts through these months of helplessness. She had always measured everything by the strict line of duty, of usefulness. There was a virtue in enduring hardness as a good soldier, and the harder it was the more virtue it held in it. Her room was plain, almost to bareness. There had been a faded patchwork top quilt at first, until Mother Taft insisted upon having something nicer. But it had to be folded up carefully at sundown, when the likelihood of calls was over. And she did put one of the new rugs on the floor. "That's beginning to go," Mrs. Taft said. "Some one will catch their foot in it and have a bad fall." "It could be mended, I suppose."