She stopped and looked tentatively at Letitia, as if curious to see how she was taking these revelations. "Do what?" asked Letitia, not understanding. "Make the jam. Not that I mind much. But it's a little sort of fancy of my father's. Sometimes older people have those ideas, and it's best to humor them, I think; don't you?" "Oh, much the best," assented the other, turning aside and looking at the plants. "It's best to humor everybody; it's so much easier to get on. What beautiful ferns!" "Yes; I am quite proud of them. But this is a splendid window for ferns." "Did you raise these yourself? I never saw such plants out of a greenhouse." Viola was now eagerly interested. "Yes, I grew them all--some of them from a few roots like black threads. I sell these, too. There is a man at one of the Kearney Street florists' who used to live near here and knew us, and he buys them from me. At Christmas I do quite well." Letitia examined the ferns. "I wonder if you would let me buy one or two of them," she said. "We can't get such plants at our florist's, and I am fonder of them than of any other kind of fern." Viola agreed with a blush of pleasure, and after some consultation four ferns were selected. The visitor was amazed at their cheapness, but concealed her astonishment. Then she bought three dozen jars of the jam. She did not pay for them, but said that on the following day she would send the money by a messenger, who would also bring away the purchases. Standing in the doorway, about to leave, she said: "I'm glad to have seen you. It's so interesting for a person like me, who can't do anything, to meet some one who is clever and of use in the world. Good-by!" She held out her hand, and Viola, surprised, put hers into it. "Don't forget to keep our secret. It makes a person feel like a conspirator, doesn't it? I think, too, Colonel Reed's quite right to want to be reticent about business matters. So you and I'll keep dark about this little transaction of ours." This was the most diplomatic sentence Letitia had ever given vent to in her life. She walked slowly away from the house, her eyes downcast in thought. The superb health she had inherited from an untainted peasant ancestry made her imagination dull, and lightened such sufferings as she had encountered in her easy, care-free life. Even now she experienced none of those fierce pangs that jealousy and disappointed love provoke in the women of a more sophisticated stock. She was made on that large, calm plan on which an all-wise nature creates the maternal woman--she whose destiny it is to bear strong children to a stalwart sire. But this afternoon, for the first time in her life, she knew what it was to feel her heart lying heavy in her breast like a thing of stone.