But the daintiest, sweetest bed of all, and the one that Mary enjoyed most, was where the lilies of the valley grew in the shade near a large, white lilac bush.

Here, on a rustic bench beneath an old apple tree, stitching on her embroidery, she dreamed happy dreams of her absent lover, and planned for the life they were to live together some day, in the home he was striving to earn for her by his own manly exertions; and she assiduously studied and pondered over Aunt Sarah's teaching and counsel, knowing them to be wise and good.
A short distance from the farm house, where the old orchard sloped down to the edge of the brook, grew tall meadow rue, with feathery clusters of green and white flowers; and the green, gold-lined, bowl-shaped blossoms of the "Cow Lily," homely stepsisters of the fragrant, white pond lily, surrounded by thick, waxy, green leaves, lazily floated on the surface of the water from long stems in the bed of the creek, and on the bank a carpet was formed by golden-yellow, creeping buttercups.
In the side yard grew two great clumps of iris, or, as it is more commonly called, "Blue Flag." Its blossoms, dainty as rare orchids, with lily-like, violet-veined petals of palest-tinted mauve and purple.
On the sunny side of the old farm house, facing the East, where at early morn the sun shone bright and warm, grew Aunt Sarah's pansies, with velvety, red-brown petals, golden-yellow and dark purple.

They were truly "Heart's Ease," gathered with a lavish hand, and sent as gifts to friends who were ill.

The more she picked the faster they multiplied, and came to many a sick bed "sweet messengers of Spring." If Aunt Sarah had a preference for one particular flower, 'twas the rose, and they well repaid the time and care she lavished on them.

She had pale-tinted blush roses, with hearts of deepest pink; rockland and prairie and hundred-leaf roses, pink and crimson ramblers, but the most highly-prized roses of her collection were an exquisite, deep salmon-colored "Marquis De Sinety" and an old-fashioned pink moss rose, which grew beside a large bush of mock-orange, the creamy blossoms of the latter almost as fragrant as real orange blossoms of the sunny Southland.