when she’s grown up, and Beth or Bess will be well enough for a child. I’ve just got to call her something.”

So Elizabeth she became. Beth was what Eliza called her. Adee was the only title that the child could be induced to give to her foster-mother.

“Some one will claim her before the week passes,” Eliza had told herself again and again. She was hopeful that it would be so. A child is a great responsibility, and the woman had no desire to take it upon herself. July passed and no one came. August had come with all the glory of color and life rampant in yard and field.

Never before had flowers bloomed so luxuriantly even for Miss Eliza. The nasturtiums were blazing with burnt orange and carmine. Petunias flaunted their heavily laden stocks. The scarlet sages glowed from every shaded nook. There was braggadocio in every clump and cluster as though every flower being in flower-land was proclaiming, “See what we can do when we try.” High carnival of bloom! Gay revelry of color! Flaunt and brag! Flaunt and brag through all those wonderful days of August.

Eliza went from flower to flower and Beth followed. There was no need to tell the child not to step upon them or to pluck them ruthlessly. She picked her steps. Her fingers touched each petal caressingly. She loved them as much as the woman herself did.

Eliza was busy weeding. Bending over, she was patiently removing with the aid of a kitchen fork the sprouts of chick-weeds which would creep in among her treasures.

Beth, who had been following her closely, suddenly proved a laggard. Missing her at last, Eliza retraced her steps to the east side of the house where she had last seen the child. There she was down on her knees at the edge of the pansy bed and her head bent close over them.

“Whatever are you doing, Beth? Not hurting Adee’s flowers?”

“No, indeedy. I was ust a tissin ’em. A has so pitty itta faces. A ast me to tiss em.” There she was, putting her lips to each purple-yellow face, and talking with them as though they were real live babies. Eliza had nothing to say. She would have done that same thing herself when she was a child if she had dared. She knew exactly how Beth felt.

Sam Houston had come around the corner and had been a witness to the pretty scene. He had come over to borrow a hatchet and some nails. A board had come off his chicken-yard and the hens had destroyed what they 

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