says she: 'These flowers don't mean anything to me. But your roses and honeysuckles and pinks mean everything; they are joy and sorrow and love and youth,--everything I have had and lost.' Hearin' her talk, Maria, was jest like readin' a book. And then, she took me around to another gyarden at the back of the house, and showed me a bed, and all the roots and slips that she'd got from me were growin' in it. The gyardner 'tends to the rest of the flowers, but he never touches this bed; the lady weeds it and waters it with her own hands. Now, I don't want anything around me that reminds me of what I've had and lost, but she's one of the kind that loves associations. "No, I haven't re-furnished all the up-stairs rooms, Maria. What's the use o' havin' furnished rooms that you never use? Yes, it does look pretty empty, but after livin' in a jungle of old mahogany these many years, you don't know what a blessed relief it is to have a few empty spots about the house. Every house ought to have one or two empty rooms, Maria, jest for folks to rest their eyes on. "Yes, I did keep one piece o' the family furniture, but it wasn't mahogany. It was that little plain rockin'-chair with the oak-split bottom; there it sets in the corner. Mother used to sit in that chair when she washed and dressed us children and rocked the baby to sleep. She liked it because it was low and hadn't any arms for the baby's head to get bumped on. I can look at it and see Mother holdin' the baby in her arms and rockin' and singin': 'Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber,' and I'd rather have that common little chair than all the old mahogany that belonged to my great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. There ain't an unpleasant association connected with that chair, and furthermore, I don't have to polish it. "Yes, this dress is rather gay, Maria, but don't you think it matches the golden oak furniture? I always like to have things in keepin' with each other, and as long as I had to live in the midst o' old mahogany, it seemed natural and proper to wear brown and black and gray. But now I feel like mixin' in a little blue and red and yellow with the brown and black and gray, and when your feelin's and your clothes and your furniture correspond, it certainly does make a comfortable condition for you. "I'll be gettin' married next? Well, maybe I will, Maria Marvin, maybe I will. Gettin' rid o' that old mahogany seems to 'a' taken about fifty years off my shoulders, and if I should happen to find a man that'd match up with my new furniture and suit me as well as that golden oak dresser does, I may get married, after all. "Do you have to go? Well, come again, Maria, and if you happen to meet any o' the neighbors, tell 'em to drop in and take a look at my golden oak furniture." MILLSTONES AND STUMBLING-BLOCKS