The next day there were more roses than ever, and I made up my mind that I would try to be patient and stay there and watch them until Betty came to see. But two or three days after, in the fresh part of the morning, when everything was loveliest, her mamma came out, walking slowly, straight towards the bush. She stood still a few moments and looked at it, and her tears fell so fast that they were like dew on the white roses as she bent over. She began to gather the prettiest buds and blossoms one by one. Her tears were falling all the time, so that I wondered how she could see what she was doing, but she gathered until her arms and her dress were full—she gathered every one! And when the bush was stripped of all but its green leaves, I gave a little heartbroken cry—because they were Betty’s roses, and she had so loved them when they were only hard little buds—and she looked down and saw me, and oh! her tears fell then, not like dew, but like rain. “Betty,” she said, “kitty, Betty has gone—where—where there are roses—always.” And she went slowly back to the house, with all my Betty’s white roses heaped up in her arms. She never told me where my Betty had gone—no one did. And no more roses came out on the bush. I sat under it and watched, because I hoped it would bloom again. I sat there for hours and hours, and at last, while I was waiting, I saw something strange. People had been going in and out of the house all morning. They kept coming, and bringing flowers, and when they went away most of them had tears in their eyes. And in the afternoon there were more than there had been in the morning. I had got so tired that I forgot, and fell asleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but I was awakened by hearing many footsteps going slowly down the garden walk towards the gate. They all seemed to be people who were going away. And first there walked before them two men who were carrying a beautiful white and silver box of some kind on their shoulders. They moved very slowly, and their heads were bent as they walked. But the white and silver box was beautiful. It shone in the sun, and—oh, how my heart beat!—all my Betty’s snow-white roses were heaped upon and wreathed around it. And I sat under the stripped rose-bush breaking my heart. She had gone away—my little Betty—and I did not know where; and all I could think was that this was the very last I should ever see of her; because I thought there must be something which had belonged to her in the white and silver box under the roses, and because she was gone they were carrying that away, too.