WILD ROSES. 
“ It must be dreadful to be sick in the city, mamma, 
and for poor Angela above all, who was so fond of the 
country. Do you remember the spring she spent with 
us?” 
“ She was like a crazy girl,” said Mrs. Lawrence. “ I 
always thought you were bad enough, but Angela was 
worse. She never cared how deep the mud was, and 
the tracks she brought into the house, it was simply 
dreadful! It took Robert half his time to brush up 
after her.” 
“ It was pretty bad,” said Mabel, laughing. “ I don’t 
believe she had a decent pair of boots left, by the time 
she went back. But if you could only have seen her 
enjoyment! It was her first country spring, you know. 
From the time the queer little shells of the Skunk-cab¬ 
bage came up she was never happy out of the woods. 
Do you know, I think I shall send her some.” 
Mrs. Lawrence looked up aghast. 
“Send her Skunk-Cabbage, my dear? I beg you will 
do nothing of the kind. The crimson and olive-green 
mottle-shells are pretty enough, but what would her 
mother say? ” 
“Not Skunk-Cabbage, mamma, dear,” said Mabel, 
laughing. “It is too late for them now. Besides, if 
she had wanted them she could have got them easily 
enough, for the last time’ I was in town I saw men sell¬ 
ing heaps of them as ‘ California Lilies! ’ Fancy the 
feelings of the unfortunate wretches who buy them 
when the green leaves come out and fill the house with 
their foeted odor ! ” 
“They are very silly to buy them,” said Mrs. Law¬ 
rence, with decision. 
“Poor things, they don’t know,” said Mabel. “The 
shells come so early—before people think of going to 
the woods. A warm day in February will bring them 
out in hosts, and by May they are all gone. But, 
mamma, what I meant was to send Angela a box of 
wild-flowers. I really think it would do her good. If 
I gather them this afternoon, papa can leave them when 
•he goes to town in the morning—I think they will keep 
fresh as long as that.” 
“It is a kind thought and will please her, no doubt,” 
said Mrs. Lawrence. 
The earlier and more delicate flowers were gone, but 
there were still treasures enough left in the woods and 
by the brookside to make the heart of a lover of flowers 
leap for joy. Copses glowed with the pink blossoms of 
the Wild-Rose; red Lilies held up their gorgeous heads 
along the edge of the wood and brushes, and trees were 
wreathed with a vine bearing delicate, white, feathery- 
blossoms, much like Clematis. Along the brook-side the 
Elder was in full bloom, and Ferns—Ferns were every¬ 
where, and in every variety. It was a box brimming 
with treasures which Mabel handed to her father the 
next morning, charging him again and again to be 
careful of it, and not let it out of his sight until he left 
it at Angelia Gresham’s door; for Mr. Lawrence was that 
most exasperating of modern inventions—an absent- 
minded man, 
“I think he will remember this time; don’t you, 
mamma ? ” she said, wistfully, as they turned away. 
But he did not. He started with the very best inten¬ 
tions in the world, never meaning to take his eye off 
the box for an instant, but, unluckily, there were sev¬ 
eral very interesting articles in the paper that day. 
Then he caught a glimpse of a friend in the next car 
and went in to speak to him, and that was the end of 
the box as far as he was concerned. 
After the passengers had all left the car, the conduc¬ 
tor, seeing the box in the rack over-head, took it down. 
“ Somebody’s left something again,” he said. “It is 
really amazing how often it happens. It’ll have to go 
to the general office. Hallo! its flowers. No good 
sending them; they’d be deader than door-nails before 
anybody could get there to claim ’em. Here, sonny, 
want some wild-flowers to sell ? ” he added, with an 
impulse of benevolence, to a ragged boy who was stand¬ 
ing near. “ Some of them city folks’ll give you a fancy 
price for ’em, most like. They don’t know they can get 
’em for nothing within five miles.” 
Jack Carroll happened to be hurrying past, just as the 
boy took the cover off the box, but as he saw the flowers 
he stopped short. 
“ Wild-Roses! ” he said. “ Just what I meant to get 
for Janie this morning if I had only had time. Are 
those flowers for sale ? ” he asked, as the boy looked up. 
“ I’ll give you a dollar for them if that will suit you. 
Speak quick, ferry-boats don’t wait.” 
It was a large paste-board box which only love for his 
sick sister would have induced Jack Carroll to carry 
through the city. He did not stop to examine the 
contents minutely, but took it directly to the large, 
handsome house where he and his little sister Janie 
lived alone, for they were rich orphans. 
A pale, delicate girl, looked up with a smile of glad 
welcome as he entered the library where she was lying 
upon a couch, with a book held between her fragile 
fingers. 
“ Better to-day, Janie ? ” he said, stooping to kiss her. 
“ See what I have brought you from the country.” 
“O, how lovely!” cried the girl, as she lifted the 
cover from the box. “ O, the lovely Ferns, and the deep 
soft Moss. See this pale, sage-green piece, isn’t it too 
exquisite ? and this other with the little scarlet spikes 
like fairy torches. And the Wild-Roses ! O, you dear 
Jack ! there is not a thorn on one of them. Did you 
pick them off on purpose for me ? And these Lilies— 
Solomon in all his glory! O, Jack, give me a glass 
bowl. Ring the bell, and Elise will bring it. Maiden¬ 
hair and Wild-Roses and Elder-flowers, was there ever a 
lovelier combination? Then I must have vases—tiny, 
fragile, glass vases for the Lilies and this feathery-white 
vine.” 
She was taking out the flowers as she talked, but 
paused suddenly as she saw beneath all something which 
was neither Fern nor flower, which she picked up with 
a look of surprise. 
“An envelope!” she exclaimed, “and with no ad¬ 
dress. Did you put it in Jack ? ” 
She had broken the seal without waiting for a reply, 
and read the contents aloud with increasing surprise: 
“Dearest Angela—I send you a breath from the 
