“Yes! The canyon flowers are much the best. Tell me what it means.”
Then The Pilot read to her: “The fruits—I'll read 'flowers'—of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control, and some of these grow only in the canyon.”
“Which are the canyon flowers?” asked Gwen softly, and The Pilot answered:
“Gentleness, meekness, self-control; but though the others, love, joy, peace, bloom in the open, yet never with so rich a bloom and so sweet a perfume as in the canyon.”
For a long time Gwen lay quite still, and then said wistfully, while her lip trembled:
“There are no flowers in my canyon, but only ragged rocks.”
“Some day they will bloom, Gwen dear; He will find them, and we, too, shall see them.”
Then he said good-by and took me away. He had done his work that day.
We rode through the big gate, down the sloping hill, past the smiling, twinkling little lake, and down again out of the broad sunshine into the shadows and soft lights of the canyon. As we followed the trail that wound among the elms and cedars, the very air was full of gentle stillness; and as we moved we seemed to feel the touch of loving hands that lingered while they left us, and every flower and tree and vine and shrub and the soft mosses and the deep-bedded ferns whispered, as we passed, of love and peace and joy.
To The Duke it was all a wonder, for as the days shortened outside they brightened inside; and every day, and more and more Gwen's room became the brightest spot in all the house, and when he asked The Pilot: