"It's hard to keep flowers in the city," said Jane.
"I know it is. At our old house we had such a nice little rose-bush in the front yard. I hated so to leave it behind—one of those little yellow brier roses. No, it wasn't yellow; it was just—'yaller.' And it always scratched my nose when I tried to smell it. But oh, child"—wistfully—"if I could only smell it now!"
"Couldn't you have transplanted it?" asked Jane, sympathetically.
"I went back the very next day after we moved out, with a peach basket and fire shovel. But my poor bush was buried under seven feet of yellow sand. To-day there's seven stories of brick and mortar. So all I've got from the old place is just this furniture of ma's and the wall-paper."
"The wall-paper?"
"Not the identical same, of course. It's like what I had in my bedroom when I was a girl. I remembered the pattern, and tried everywhere to match it. At first I just tried on Twenty-second street. Then I went down-town. Then I tried all the little places away out on the West Side. Then I had the pattern put down on paper and I made a tour of the country. I went to Belvidere, and to Beloit, and to Janesville, and to lots of other places between here and Geneva. And finally—"
"Well, what—finally?"
"Finally, I sent down East and had eight or ten rolls made to order. I chased harder than anybody ever chased for a Raphael, and I spent more than if I had hung the room with Gobelins; but—"
She stroked the narrow strips of pink and green with a fond hand, and cast on Jane a look which pleaded indulgence. "Isn't it just too quaintly ugly for anything?"
"It isn't any such thing," cried Jane. "It's just as sweet as it can be! I only wish mine was like it."