"I feel as if we could just lend a helping hand and be thankful."
"Of course, I'm glad she's stopped moping," admitted Miss Barry; "but I don't yet see what started her out on this. It really isn't Linda's business." The speaker was still smarting under the invasion of what she considered her own private and particular territory.
"Oh, I'm not so sure. We are our brother's keeper after all and our little sister's too."
"It don't do them any good to make them vain," declared Miss Barry. "However," she added, "Blanche Aurora's as homely as a mud fence. I don't know as there's much danger."
"Sh! Sh!" warned Mrs. Porter.
"Oh, she's outdoors, she won't hear me."
"You ask what started it," said Mrs. Porter. "Linda's awakened observation and her desire to add to the sum of happiness might have done so, but it really was Blanche Aurora's own thoughtfulness that did it." And Mrs. Porter told the story of the daily wild rose.
"Of all things," remarked Miss Barry when she had finished. "Well, I certainly never would have thought that of that sharp little thing."
"We're none of us such sharp things as we seem," returned Mrs. Porter.
"I don't know how it is with you," said Miss Barry presently, "but I think a great deal about that poor Mr. King," and her long earrings swung in a challenge.