But one year—­this very last year, children—­the lilac-bush grew tired of being good and working hard; and the more it thought about it, the sadder and sorrier and more discouraged it grew.  The winter had been dark and rainy; the ground was so wet that its roots felt slippery and uncomfortable; there was some disagreeable moss growing on its smooth branches; the sun almost never shone; the birds came but seldom; and at last the lilac-bush said, “I will give up:  I am not going to bud or bloom or do a single thing for Easter this year!  I don’t care if my trunk does n’t grow, nor my buds swell, nor my leaves grow larger!  If Hester wants her room shaded, she can pull the curtain down; and the lame girl can”—­do without, it was going to say, but it did n’t dare—­oh, it did n’t dare to think of the poor little lame girl without any comforting flowers; so it stopped short and hung its head.

Six or eight weeks ago Hester and her mother went out one morning to see the lilac-bush.

“It does n’t look at all as it ought,” said Hester, shaking her head sadly.  “The buds are very few, and they are all shrunken.  See how limp and flabby the stems of the leaves look!”

“Perhaps it is dead,” said Hester’s mother, “or perhaps it is too old to bloom.”

“I like that!” thought the lilac-bush.

“I ’m not dead and I ’m not dying, though I ’d just as lief die as to keep on working in this dark, damp, unpleasant winter, or spring, or whatever they call it; and as for being past blooming, I would just like to show her, if it was n’t so much trouble!  How old does she think I am, I wonder?  There is n’t a thing in this part of the city that is over ten years old, and I was n’t planted first, by any means!”

And then Hester said, “My darling, darling lilac-bush!  Easter won’t be Easter without it; and lame Jenny leans out of her window every day as I come from school, and asks, ‘Is the lilac budding?’”

“Oh dear!” sighed the little bush.  “I wish she would n’t talk that way; it makes me so nervous to have Jenny asking questions about me!  It starts my sap circulating, and I shall grow in spite of me!”

“Let us see what we can do to help it,” said Hester’s mother.  “Take your trowel and dig round the roots first.”

“They ’ll find a moist and sticky place and be better able to sympathize with me,” thought the lilac.

“Then put in some new earth, the richest you can get, and we ’ll snip off all the withered leaves and dry twigs, and see if it won’t take a new start.”

“I shall have to, I believe, whether I like it or not, if they make such a fuss about me!” thought the lilac-bush.  “It seems a pity if a thing can’t stop growing and be let alone and die if it wants to!”

But though it grumbled a trifle at first, it felt so much better after Hester and her mother had spent the afternoon caring for it, that it began to grow a little just out of gratitude,—­and what do you think happened?