“Witch-grass and nettle and rag-weed grope,—
Paupers that eat the earth’s riches out,—
Nightshade and henbane are lurking about,
Like demons that enter in
When a soul has run waste to sin.”
JUNE, departing, had scattered her wealth of floral treasures wide over the land, and Cherry Street, lowliest child of her adoption, had not been forgotten. Under the wholesome influence of trowel, watering-can, and good black soil Miss Billy's garden had grown apace, and now burst into such a riotous excess of bloom as brought the small Cherryites to the fence in groups of silent adoration. Beds of scarlet geraniums glowed like the heart of rubies on the green lawn. Sweet peas were opening their pretty eyes and peeping over into Mr. Hennesy's yard. June roses, white, pink, and blood red, swung on their stems breathing incense night and day, while on the side of the house bloomed the pansy bed, hundreds of pretty faces of many colours and marvellous size. Over the back fence nasturtiums were opening their golden hearts, and a group of tall hollyhocks stood boldly disputing right of way with the arms of the Hennesy clothes reel.
Mrs. Hennesy had been sweeping, and now she stood in the upstairs window looking down at the floral display in her neighbour's yard.
"It do be lookin' loike a park, Mary Jane," she commented at last. "Mrs. Casey was a good neighbour an' its mesilf that'll niver be over missin' her,—but she niver had things lookin' loike that. An' it's that girl—'Miss Billy,' as they call her,—that's done it all."
Marie Jean, who had condescended to the menial task of setting her bureau drawers to rights, turned her head slightly. "Well," she commented indifferently, "if she wants to waste her time on an old garden I suppose it's nobody's business but her own."
Mrs. Hennesy discreetly waived the argument. "I think I'll be goin' over there to see thim this afthernoon, Mary Jane. They're that noice an' frindly it ain't roight for us not to be goin' near thim. Miss Billy has axed me twice to have you come over. It ain't neighbourly, Mary Jane,—that's what it ain't."
"Well, go on if you want to," said Marie Jean, beginning to hum a tune to show the matter was too trifling for further consideration; but she broke off to add, "wear your bead cape and your lace bonnet if you do go."
Mrs. Hennesy's face took on a look of despair. "Well now, Mary Jane," she began, "it's just a neighbour, an' a clane apron——"
"You must wear your bead cape and your lace bonnet," reiterated Marie Jean, with spirit. "And be sure you go to the front door. You must go decently, or not at all."