"I can show you some of those, too," she said. "I brought them from the woods for the sake of old times. Here is my pet corner." This was a moss-covered rock, the water trickling over it, tall ferns behind it, and clusters of wood violets nestling at the foot. "This is a bit of the woods, you see, Mr. Thornton, except that the ferns are in pots, and the violets in boxes. Will not these violets be astonished when they wake up in this strange place instead of down by the stump in the woods where I found them?" It seemed that Mr. Thornton's lips opened of themselves to say, "Yes, I very well remember the day." And Lily, just then, remembered the day, too, and the curious circumstance that had often puzzled her—the maple branch broken off and laid in her path, and yet no one appeared to be in the woods but herself. "Was Mr. Thornton there, too?" She gave him a quick look, but he was absorbed in studying the violets with a perfectly grave face, and she put the idea from her as absurd. "He is very absent-minded," she told herself; "is in haste to be gone, and considers me tiresome." He came over again to the English violets and took long breaths of their sweetness, then said, "I have a friend who calls this her flower, and these blossoms are not more fragrant than is her spirit. Will you kindly cut a few for her?" And drawing out his watch, "It is quite time I was gone." He took his violets, lingered again outside, admiring the beauty of the scene. Everything was clear-cut against a cloudless sky and white moonlit earth. "Gloriously beautiful, is it not?" he said. "Think of looking up at such a sky as that,— "'In the solemn midnight, centuries ago,' "searching for the one star." "Think of seeing a multitude of angels appear in such a sky," she said, with upturned face. The pure, rapt expression and the white robes made her companion fear for an instant that she would vanish out of his sight, and he involuntarily drew her hand through his arm and moved on. "After all, Mr. Thornton," she said, "my thoughts are rather on the earth than the sky, to-night. 'Peace on earth, good will to men.' I've been singing it all day. The Lord has been very kind to us this Christmas. He sent us this lovely home for our very own—Grandpa told you, did he not? See it in the moonlight! Does it not look like a dear little gray dove nestled down among the snows and the evergreens?" It was a glowing face Mr. Thornton turned to her. These were precious words to hear, and he rejoiced that his secret had been well kept. In lieu of other friends this young florist held much converse with her flowers, fairly investing them with souls. She went back to them now, and looked them over lovingly. "He has a friend who loves white violets," she told them. "Do you suppose she is like him?" but the perfumed breath did not answer.