84 A WHITE-PAPER GARDEN 



was an hour ago, and an hour is long for 

 April constancy, and here are the pansies 

 eager to claim an allegiance no one can deny. 

 One of the other old ladies, who had a long- 

 ago front yard, and had also the sweet and 

 gentle fancies which must needs come to all 

 who share in the innocent joys of a garden, 

 said of her pansies : 



" I love the little things best of all. They 

 look up into the face of their Heavenly Father 

 as if they hadn't a thing to be ashamed of." 



An appreciation that seems to me to reveal 

 the secret which has made men call them 

 heart's-ease. In the coldest Januarys the 

 blossoms look out from under their purple 

 hoods, and when the latest November storm 

 has turned the bravest chrysanthemum into 

 a bit of brown wreckage, they are still here 

 to bid us be of good courage. Full of mischief 

 they seem to be at times, but full, sometimes, 

 of a divine directness of glance which makes 

 plain what was meant by a poor outcast of 

 the slums to whom a knot of white pansies 

 was once given. She looked at them, and 

 with a burst of tears she answered them : 



" I'll try ! " she said. " Indeed I'll try ! " 



