Joshua took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at her in some surprise.
“Common things—eh?” he repeated.
“Yes, Uncle,” said Lilac hesitatingly, and trying to think of how to make it clear. But she could only add:
“They call the pigs common too.”
“Well, as to pigs,” said Joshua, “I wish they was commoner still. I don’t despise a bit of bacon myself. I call that a good thing anyhow. When one comes to look at it,” he continued after a few puffs at his pipe, “the best things of all is common. The things as is under our feet and nigh to our hand and easy to be got. There’s the flowers now—the common ones which grow so low as any child can pick ’em in the fields, daisies and such. There’s the blue sky as we can all see, poor as well as rich. There’s rain and sunshine and air and a heap else as belongs to all alike, and which we couldn’t do without. The common things is the best things, don’t you make any mistake about that. There’s your own name now—Lilac. It’s a common bush lilac is; it grows every bit as well in a little bit of garden nigh the road as in a grand park, and it hasn’t no rare colours to take the eye. And yet on a sunshiny day after rain the folks passing’ll say, ‘Whatever is it as smells so beautiful?’ Why it’s just the common lilac bush. You ought to be like that in a manner of speaking—not to try and act clever and smart so as to make folks stare, but to be good-tempered and peaceful and loving, so as they say when you leave ’em, ‘What made the place so pleasant? Why, it was Lilac White. She ain’t anything out of the common, but we miss her now she’s gone—’”
The frequent mention of her name reminded Lilac of something she wanted to say, and she broke in suddenly:
“Why, I’ve never thought to thank you, Uncle, for all that bloom you got me on May Day. What a long way back it do seem!”
Joshua looked perplexed.
“What’s the child talking on?” he said. “I didn’t get no flowers.”
“Whoever in all the world could it a been then?” said Lilac slowly. “You’re sure you haven’t forgotten, Uncle Joshua?”