Part 3 (1/2)

The frost will soon be falling.” The old man sometimes helped at the convent in garden work.

”Who is this young man?” she inquired carelessly a few moments later.

But Ezra was one of those persons who cherish a faint dislike of all present company. Moreover, he knew the good Sister's love of news. So he began to resist her with the more pleasure that he could at least evade her questions.

”I don't know,” he replied, with a mysterious shake of the head.

”Come this way,” she said beguilingly, turning aside into another walk, ”and look at the chrysanthemums. How did you happen to meet him?”

When Sister Dolorosa and Helm found themselves walking slowly side by side down the garden-path--this being what he most had hoped for and she most had feared--there fell upon each a momentary silence of preparation. Speak she must; if only in speaking she might not err.

Speak he could; if only in speaking he might draw from her more knowledge of her life, and in some becoming way cause her to perceive his interest in it.

Then she, as his guide, keeping her face turned towards the border of flowers, but sometimes lifting it shyly to his, began with great sweetness and a little hurriedly, as if fearing to pause--

”The garden is not pretty now. It is full of flowers, but only a few are blooming. These are daffodils. They bloomed in March, long ago. And here were spring beauties. They grow wild, and do not last long. The Mother Superior wished some cultivated in the garden, but they are better if let alone to grow wild. And here are violets, which come in April. And here is Adam and Eve, and tulips. They are gay flowers, and bloom together for company. You can see Adam and Eve a long way off, and they look better at a distance. These were the white lilies, but one of the Sisters died, and we made a cross. That was in June. Jump-up-Johnnies were planted in this bed, but they did not do well. It has been a bad year. A storm blew the hollyhocks down, and there were canker-worms in the roses. That is the way with the flowers: they fail one year, and they succeed the next. They would never fail if they were let alone. It is pleasant to see them starting out in the Spring to be perfect each in its own way. It is pleasant to water them and to help. But some will be perfect, and some will be imperfect, and no one can alter that. They are like the children in the school; only the flowers would all be perfect if they had their way, and the children would all be wrong if they had theirs--the poor, good children! This is touch-me-not. Perhaps you have never heard of any such flower. And there, next to it, is love-lies-bleeding. We have not much of that; only this one little plant.” And she bent over and stroked it.

His whole heart melted under the white radiance of her innocence. He had thought her older; now his feeling took the form of the purest delight in some exquisite child nature. And therefore, feeling thus towards her, and seeing the poor, dead garden with only common flowers, which nevertheless she separately loved, oblivious of their commonness, he said with sudden warmth, holding her eyes with his--

”I wish you could see my mother's garden and the flowers that bloom in it.” And as he spoke there came to him a vision of her as she might look in a certain secluded corner of it, where ran a trellised walk; over-clambering roses, pale golden, full blown or budding, and bent with dew; the May sun golden in the heavens; far and near birds singing and soaring in ecstasy; the air lulling the sense with perfume, quickening the blood with freshness; and there, within that frame of roses, her head bare and s.h.i.+ning, her funereal garb for ever laid aside for one that matched the loveliest hue of living nature around, a flower at her throat, flowers in her hand, sadness gone from her face, there the pure and radiant incarnation of a too-happy world, this exquisite child-nature, advancing towards him with eyes of love.

Having formed this picture, he could not afterwards destroy it; and as they resumed their walk he began very simply to describe his mother's garden, she listening closely because of her love for flowers, which had become companions to her, and merely saying dreamily, half to herself and with guarded courtesy half to him, ”It must be beautiful.”

”The Mother Superior intends to make the garden larger next year, and to have fine flowers in it, Ezra. It has been a prosperous year in the school, and there will be money to spare. This row of lilacs is to be dug up, and the fence set back so as to take in the onion patch over there. When does he expect to go away?” The aged Sister had not made rapid progress.

”I haven't heard him say,” replied the old man.

”Perhaps Martha has heard him say.”

Ezra only struck the toe of his stout boot with his staff.

”The Mother Superior will want _you_ to dig up the lilacs, Ezra. You can do it better than any one else.”

The old man shook his head threateningly at the bushes. ”I can settle them,” he said.

”Better than any one else. Has Martha heard him say when he is going away?”

”To-morrow,” he replied, conceding something in return for the lilacs.

”These are the chrysanthemums. They are white, but some are perfect and some are imperfect, you see. Those that are perfect are the ones to feel proud of, but the others are the ones to love.”

”If all were perfect would you no longer love them?” he said gently, thinking how perfect she was and how easy it would be to love her.

”If all were perfect, I could love all alike, because none would need to be loved more than others.”

”And when the flowers in the garden are dead, what do you find to love then?” he asked, laughing a little and trying to follow her mood.