"Miss Peace," she said timidly, "I—I don't suppose you would feel to pick those flowers you were going to send over to Tupham for the Sunday-school festival? I know they kind o' lot on the flowers you send, 'cause they're always so fresh, and you do them up so pretty. But if you don't feel to do it, I can send them word, or ask some one else"—
"The idea!" cried Anne Peace, brightening up. "I forgot the flowers, Jenny, I did so! I should be pleased to pick them, and I'll do it this minute. There—there isn't anything I should like so well. And I do thank you, dear, and if you really think your father wouldn't mind seeing—I am sure it is a privilege to have such neighbours, I always say. There couldn't anybody be more blessed in neighbours than I have always been."
In ten minutes Miss Peace was at work in her garden, cutting, trimming, tying up posies, and finding balm for her inward wound in the touch of the rose-leaves, and in the smell of mignonette, David's favourite flower. No one in Cyrus had such mignonette as Miss Peace, and people thought she had some special receipt for making it grow and blossom luxuriantly; but she always said no, it was only because she set by it. Folks could most always grow the things they set most store by, she thought.
So the Sunday-school festival at Tupham Corner was a perfect blaze of flowers, and the minister in his speech made allusion to generous friends in other parishes, who sent of their wealth to swell our rejoicings, and of their garden produce to gladden our eyes; but while the eyes of Tupham were being gladdened, Anne Peace was brushing Joey's and Georgie's hair, and tying black ribbons under their little chins, smiling at them through her tears, and bidding them be brave for dear father's sake, who was gone to the best home now, and would never be sick any more, or tired, or—or sad.
It was a quiet funeral: almost a cheerful one, the neighbours said, as they saw the little room filled with bright flowers (they all seemed to smell of mignonette, there was so much of it hidden among the roses), and the serene face of the chief mourner, who stood at the head of the coffin, with a child in either hand. It was an unusual thing, people felt. Generally, at Cyrus funerals, the mourners stayed up-stairs, leaving the neighbours to gather round the coffin in the flower-scented room below; but it did not seem strange in Anne Peace, somehow, and, after the first glance, no one could fancy any one else standing there. The old minister, who had christened both David and Anne on the same day, said a few gentle, cheering words, and the choir sang "Lead, kindly Light;" then the procession went its quiet way to the churchyard, and all was over.
Jenny Miller and the doctor followed Miss Peace home from the churchyard, but made no attempt to speak to her. She seemed unconscious of any one save the children, to whom she was talking in low, cheerful tones. The doctor caught the words "rest," "home," "happiness;" and as she passed into the house he heard her say distinctly: "Blessed privilege! My children now, my own! my own!"
"So they are!" said Doctor Brown, taking off his glasses to clear them. "So they are, and so they will remain. I don't imagine Delia will ever come back, do you, Jenny?"
"No," said Jenny, "I don't. She'll marry the undertaker before the year is out."
And she did.
THE END.