"Linda has been born again in some ways," she said at last. "In the school of this world you must have noticed that if people's eyes are not opened by truths vital to right living, they have to learn by suffering. Linda has suffered greatly. It has softened her heart. In this little experience right here she shows she longs to do something for another: to make the lot of another happier. This humble little girl happens to be to her hand." "Humble! Not so you'd notice it," commented Miss Barry. "I feel as if we could just lend a helping hand and be thankful." "Of course, I'm glad she's stopped moping," admitted Miss Barry; "but I don't yet see what started her out on this. It really isn't Linda's business." The speaker was still smarting under the invasion of what she considered her own private and particular territory. "Oh, I'm not so sure. We are our brother's keeper after all and our little sister's too." "It don't do them any good to make them vain," declared Miss Barry. "However," she added, "Blanche Aurora's as homely as a mud fence. I don't know as there's much danger." "Sh! Sh!" warned Mrs. Porter. "Oh, she's outdoors, she won't hear me." "You ask what started it," said Mrs. Porter. "Linda's awakened observation and her desire to add to the sum of happiness might have done so, but it really was Blanche Aurora's own thoughtfulness that did it." And Mrs. Porter told the story of the daily wild rose. "Of all things," remarked Miss Barry when she had finished. "Well, I certainly never would have thought that of that sharp little thing." "We're none of us such sharp things as we seem," returned Mrs. Porter. "I don't know how it is with you," said Miss Barry presently, "but I think a great deal about that poor Mr. King," and her long earrings swung in a challenge. "I do, too," returned the other quietly. "Linda's clothed now and in her right mind, as you might say. I think instead of dressing dolls it would be more to the point, if her heart's so soft, if she'd write that young man a letter with some human kindness in it." Mrs. Porter looked out over the sea which seemed as ever ready to encroach on the cottage and carry it off in triumph. "Perhaps she has done so," she replied. "No, sir. I don't believe it," was the energetic response, earrings swinging in the strong head-shaking. "If she had, he'd have answered, and I've seen every letter that's come to her. I know his writing." "No one sees it very often," said Mrs. Porter, stitching steadily. "I should feel much easier if he would write to me, yet I don't urge it because I won't add a straw to his burdens." "Well, I don't see how Linda, with some of the memories she's got of her own actions, can have the heart to think of clothes instead of trying to atone for her injustice."