An hour slipped by, but still the major did not come. My crown grew heavy on my head, and the flowers wilted in my hot hands. The lady from over the way came to ask me questions. She had on her ugliest hair, and there were tears in her eyes.
"What are you doing, Rhoda?" she asked, with an anxious look.
Then she seemed to divine.
"You are not watching for the major!" she exclaimed.
"Yes," I answered, wearily.
"Doesn't your mother know, child?" she cried. "But, then, he never told any one. They found that there must be an operation, and he was not strong. There was no one whom he loved there at the end. He died, as he lived, all alone. Oh, poor old man! Poor old man! Let me go by, child! Let me go by!"
She thrust herself in the little gate, wheeling me back against the fence, and went up the path to our house.
Then, in hardly a moment, Norah came out and led me in, and proceeded to take off all my pretty things and put on a common dress, quite an old one, with a darn on the sleeve.
"I don't want that dress, Norah," I protested. "I want my white dress. I want to see my major. I want to be his little flower girl."