"A mistake," said Aunt Jessica, shaking the dirt vigorously from a fistful of sorrel. "A mistake, unless it is a question of life and death. We have too much land in this country to plow up our flowers, yet a while. And a war year is just the time when we need them most. No, I never feel I am wasting my time when I work among flowers." "But they're not _necessary_, are they?" questioned Elliott. "Of course, they're beautiful; but I thought luxuries had to go, just now." "Flowers a luxury? Oh, my dear little girl, put that notion out of your head quickly! American-beauty roses may be a luxury, and white lilacs in the dead of winter, but garden flowers, never! Wait till you see the daffodils dancing under those apple trees next spring!" And she nodded up the grassy slope at the apple trees as though she and they shared a delightful secret that Elliott did not yet know. Privately the girl held a different opinion about next spring, but she wondered why Aunt Jessica should talk of daffodils. They seemed rather lugged into a conversation in July. Mother Jess reached with her clawlike weeder far into the border. Her voice came back over her shoulder in little gusts of words as she worked. "Did you ever hear that saying of the Prophet?--'He that hath two loaves let him sell one and buy a flower of the narcissus; for bread is food for the body, but narcissus is food for the soul.' That's the way I feel about flowers. They are the least expensive way of getting beauty and we can't live without beauty, now less than ever, since they have destroyed so much of it in France. There! now I must stop for to-day. Don't you want to take this culling-basket and pick it full of the prettiest things you can find for Mrs. Gordon? Perhaps you would like to take it over to her, too. It isn't a very long walk." "But I've never met her." "That won't matter. Just tell her who you are and that you belong to us. Mrs. Gordon loves flowers, though she hasn't much time to tend them." "I shouldn't think any one could have less time than you." Aunt Jessica laughed. "Oh, I make time!" Elliott picked up the flat green basket, lifted the shears she found lying in it, and went hesitatingly up and down the borders. "What shall I pick?" "Anything. Suit yourself. Make the basket as pretty as you can. If you pick here and there, the borders won't show where you cut from them." Mother Jess gathered up gloves and tools, and went away, tugging her basket of weeds. Elliott, left behind, surveyed the borders critically. To cut without letting it appear that she had cut was evidently what Aunt Jessica wanted. She reached in and snipped off a spire of larkspur from the very back of the border, then stood back to see what had happened. No, if one hadn't known the stalk had been there, one wouldn't now know it was gone. The thing could be done, then. Cautiously she selected a head of white phlox. The result of that operation also was satisfactory.