There was a moment of hesitation,—just a moment; then with a little rising of color, a little tremulousness of voice, Hope said,—
"Kate, do you remember that piece of music that I brought back from Boston,—that 'Idyl of the Spring' that Mr. Kolb had composed for me to play at our coming May festival?"
"That piece dedicated to you, and so oddly named 'Mayflowers: Ten Cents a Bunch'?"
"Yes, and do you remember, when you asked me how he came to give it such an odd title, that I told you he had known a little girl once that he was very fond of, who had sold mayflowers at ten cents a bunch?"
"Yes."
"Well, I was that little girl."
"You! you! When—where—how did you come to sell them?"
"I'll tell you;" and then, for the second time that night, Hope told her story of that 'poor time,' as Dorothea had blunderingly called it,—that dear time, as she herself rightly and happily called it,—when she lived with her father and mother in the little cottage at Riverview, and carried out her joyous plan of earning that wonderful twenty-five dollars to buy the good little fiddle. As she told the story now, as she went back to the details of her plan, with Kate for audience, and described the little fiddle in the shop-window as she had first seen it, and the sinking of her heart as she was told the price, and then the happy relief of her inspiration when she heard the boy on the street call out "Ten cents a bunch," she began to lose her shyness in the warmth of her recollection,—to lose her shyness and to forget her shrinking from a possible auditor who wouldn't understand. Wouldn't understand! As she neared the end, as she came to her meeting with Dorothea in the Brookside station, and said, "It was there that I first met Dorothea," Kate burst in,—
"And she insulted you, she insulted you in her ignorance and stupidity! I can see it all,—all. She couldn't comprehend such a dear darling brave little thing as you. She took you for an ordinary little street huckster,—the horrid thick-headed, thick-skinned creature,—and sneered and jeered at you, and very likely called you names, or did other dreadful things."
"Oh, no, no, Kate! she wasn't malicious. She didn't mean to hurt me; but she was ignorant of any way of living but her own way, and she thought that anybody who sold things on the street must be one of those very poor people who lived anyhow, like the people at the North End, and so she asked me questions,—questions that hurt me, because they showed that she thought I was so different from herself. No, it wasn't malice that made her ask these questions, it was simply ignorance; and I—I told her so at last."