"Yes, you are here--that's so!" He almost smiled at her. His eyes returned to the fingers resting in her lap. "I have not had a chance to thank you--for your great kindness the other night." "You are welcome," said Aunt Jane. "It wasn't any great kindness," she added after a minute, "I always do for folks that need me." "I suppose you know--" He stopped a moment, as if he could not quite speak of the thing that was in his mind. "I think you _made_ me--come back," he said slowly. "It makes a difference whether somebody cares," admitted Aunt Jane. "Did you care?" The sharp, pointed face was turned to her. "Did you care--!" "Yes, I cared," said Aunt Jane. "But--" He looked at her, bewildered, and was silent--looking before him. Aunt Jane regarded him and smiled. "There didn't seem to be anybody _but_ me--to care," she said cheerfully. "No--there wasn't." "But I see now that there's a good many of them--" She motioned to the flowers. "I don't know as I ever see anybody have more flowers the first week." "Flowers don't care--the people those came from don't care!" The tone was scornful, almost bitter. "Don't they!" She beamed on the flowers. "Somehow I can't ever believe flowers don't mean what they look," she said thoughtfully. "These don't!" His little cynical smile rested on them. "Those roses there--They must have cost ten dollars at least----" "I never saw bigger ones," assented Aunt Jane. "My partner's widow sent them.... She sent them for business." "_Did_ she!" Aunt Jane looked at the roses with interest. "Mere business!" said Medfield. "And the carnations on the desk there--are from the men in the office----" "There's always something fresh about carnations." She got up leisurely and went over to them and lifted the vase and brought it to him. "Just smell of those!" She held them out. "Aren't they just about the freshest things you ever smelled!" He sniffed at them reluctantly and motioned them aside. "And those foxgloves there----" He was talking out all the bitterness that had been in him as he had lain and watched the great boxes opened and the flowers ranged about him--"exactly as if I were a funeral!" he finished up at last. Aunt Jane smiled to him. "What would you like me to do with them for you?" she asked tranquilly. "Do whatever you like. _I_ don't care!" His indifference had returned and he looked tired. She leaned forward a little. "I'm going to take out that head-rest," she said, "so's you can lie down." She removed the frame from behind the pillows and shook them a little and let them gently back. "There--now you can lie down and have a good rest; and pretty quick now you're going to have some broth and then you'll go to sleep.... It don't do any good to get stirred up over folks' flowers," she said quietly. "No." There was a little smile on his lips. He looked up at her, almost like a boy, from his pillow. "But it did me good to tell you!"