"Yet there are Christmas roses, you see."
"For such as you," he answered.
"For you," she said earnestly. "Only have faith and patience, and open your heart to the sunshine God sends, and the sweet flowers of charity—I like the word, even though love may be more correct—will blossom round your path."
When they were gone, Trulock sat gazing at the fair, pure blossoms, but he murmured, "Not for me! Not for me!"
Mrs. Short forgot to put her flowers in water, and threw them out the next morning, muttering contemptuously,—
"Rubbishy things! If it had even been a bit of holly, now, to stick in my pudding!"
[CHAPTER II.]
RALPH TRULOCK'S STORY.
BONNIE May Cloudesley caught cold on that Christmas Day, and was so ill that as soon as she was fit to travel, her husband took her home to her mother to be nursed for a while. Very dreary and uncomfortable the poor fellow was during her absence; and when she came home, quite recovered, he informed her that she must never be ill again, as he could not possibly get on without her.
"Nonsense, Gilbert! Why, we have not been married a year—and how did you get on all the thirty-four years before you even knew me?"