In the great vegetable garden which covered the space between the prison and the fort was a corner that reflected no great credit on the authorities. The persons who might reasonably have been expected to take that neglected bit of ground under their loving care did no such thing. The beds were weeded by Sandy, the gardener, and now and then a blossom rewarded that attention; but the flower-patch waited for Elizabeth. The gardener knew very well how she prized the pretty flowers;--they appealed to his own rude nature in a very tender way. He loved to see the young girl flying down the narrow paths as swiftly as a bird, if she but spied a bloom from afar. There was a tree whose branches hung over the wall, every one of them growing, with dreadful perversity, away from the cold, hard prison-ground which held the roots so fast. Time was never long enough when she sat in the shade of those branches, watching Sandy at his work. By-and-by it happened that the flower-garden was given over to the charge of the girl. It was natural that she, who had never seen other flower-beds than these, should, aided by the home-recollections of her mother, imagine far prettier,--that she should dare suggest to Sandy, until his patience and his skill were exhausted,--that the final good result should have come about in a moment when no one looked for it,--he giving up his task with vexation, she accepting it with humility, and both working together thereafter, the most helpful of friends. It required not many seasons for Elizabeth to prove her skill and diligence in the culture of this garden-ground,--not many for the transformation of square, awkward beds into a mass of bloom. How did those flowers delight the generous heart! With what particular splendor shone the house of Montier through all the summer season! The ladies now began to think about bouquets, and knew where they could find them. From this same blessed nook the Governor's table was daily supplied with its most beautiful ornament. Men tenderly disposed smiled on the young face that from under the broad-brimmed garden-hat smiled back on them. Some deemed her fairer than the flowers she cared for. One day in the spring of the year that brought her thirteenth birthday, Elizabeth ran down through the morning mist, and plucked the first spring flower. She stayed but to gather the beauty whose budding she had long watched; no one must rob her mother of this gift. She carried off the prize before the gaze of one who had also hailed it in the bleak, drear dawn. This was not the gardener;--and there was neither man, woman, nor child in sight, during the swift run;--no freeman; but a prisoner in an upper room of the prison. Through its grated window, the only one on that side of the building, he had that morning for the first time looked upon the island which had held him long a prisoner.