Sometimes it was a simple bunch of rosebuds, which, expanding day by day, blossomed at length into full glory, cheering and filling his gloomy cell with their beauty and fragrance.
Sometimes it was a box of lilies of the valley, or violets, or heliotrope and myrtle blossoms; at others, a tempting basket of fruit, with a book or periodical of some kind; and Earle knew that his little friend had not forgotten him.
Faithfully, never missing a single day, they came for a year, when they suddenly ceased, and he received them no more.
No one can realize how the poor prisoner missed these bright evidences of remembrance, nor how eagerly he still looked for them every Saturday for a long time, thinking that perhaps Editha was away or sick, and could not send them for him.
“She has forgotten me, after all,” he sighed, sadly, after several months had passed and he had not received a single flower; and it seemed almost as if death had bereaved him—of some dear one as he returned to his lonely cell at night, after his daily task was ended, and there was no sweet perfume to greet him, no bright blossoms to cheer him.
All that remained to comfort him was a little box filled with dried and faded flowers that he had not had the heart to throw away, and the memory of the brightness that had been.
And what was the reason of all this?
Had Editha forgotten?
Had she, amid the busy cares which occupied her time and attention at this time, grown careless and neglectful?
No. It happened in this way: