“Tell us what your flower is, if you know it?” demanded Natalie eagerly.
“It is the honeysuckle—not the wild but the clinging vine,” returned Mrs. James.
“Ha! That means devotion, doesn’t it. Quite true of your characteristics, too,” remarked Mrs. Tompkins.
Mrs. James flushed, but smiled with thanks at the delicate compliment, then added: “Is there a legend to go with it?”
“It is a love story of Old England, but not claimed to be true. It goes like this: A sweet little country maid would not look at the uncouth lads of her village, so they stood aside and sighed in vain.
“But a handsome young gallant rode through the dale, one morn, and spied the lovely discontented rural maid as she stood beside the door of her humble home-cottage. He tarried in the village long enough to woo the girl who had appealed so strongly to his senses, but when he had won her love and she was dreaming of her wedding day, he realized how tiresome she would be in his gay life of London.
“So he told her ruthlessly one moonlight evening that he could not wed because he had wearied of her love. The maid cried out brokenly that she would not let him leave her. But he sprang away from her outstretched hands and ran for his horse which had been hidden behind the trees. Before he could reach it, however, the jilted maid ran after and caught his body in her embrace. She sank upon her knees, while she still clung desperately to his waist and hands and begged him to remain with her yet a little while.
“He was just about to tear away her clinging fingers so he could escape, when the moon rode out from behind the black cloud that had veiled its face hitherto. The broken-hearted maiden cried to the moon to help her keep her lover always beside her, and instantly, an icy finger of moonlight touched the callous youth and turned him into a slender tree. About the trunk of the tree there twined the arms of the girl in the form of the honeysuckle, but every tear she wept produced a splash of a flower that shed sweetest fragrance upon the air.”
“That is a very romantic little story, but not one that I can claim as an appropriate one for myself,” laughed Mrs. James.
“Now that Jimmy has had her flower and its legend, I think we ought to hear one for Miss Mason, too,” declared Janet.