“Uncle Dick lets me have a garden,” said Hazel.  “He let me buy geraniums and pansies and lemon verbena—­I love that, don’t you?”

“Yes.  I’ve got a big plant of it back here.  Wouldn’t you like to come in and see it?”

“Oh, thank you,” returned Hazel, her gray eyes sparkling; and Miss Fletcher felt quite a glow of pleasure in seeing the happiness she was conferring by the invitation.  Most of her friends took her garden as a matter of course; and smiled patronizingly at her devotion to it.

In a minute the little girl had run to the gate in the white fence, and, entering, joined the mistress of the house, who stood beside the flourishing plants blooming in all their summer loveliness.

For the next fifteen minutes neither of the two knew that time was flying.  They talked and compared and smelled of this blossom and that, their unity of interest making their acquaintance grow at lightning speed.  Miss Fletcher was more pleased than she had been for many a day, and as for Hazel, when her hostess went down on her knees beside a verbena bed and began taking steel hairpins from her tightly knotted hair, to pin down the luxuriant plants that they might go on rooting and spread farther, the little girl felt that the climax of interest was reached.

“I’m going to ask uncle Dick,” she said admiringly, “if I can’t have some verbenas and a paper of hairpins.”

“Dear me,” returned Miss Fletcher, “I wish poor Flossie took as much interest in the garden as you do.”

“‘Flossie’ sounds like a kitten, returned Hazel.

“She’s a little human kitten:  a poor little afflicted girl who is making me a visit.  You can see her sitting up there in the house, by the window.”

Hazel looked up and caught a glimpse of a pale face.  Her eyes expressed her wonder.  “Who afflicted her?” she asked softly.

“Her Heavenly Father, for some wise purpose,” was the response.

“Oh, it couldn’t have been that!” returned the child, shocked.  “You know God is Love.”

“Yes, I know,” replied Miss Fletcher, turning to her visitor in surprise at so decided an answer from such a source; “but it isn’t for us to question what His love is.  It’s very different from our poor mortal ideas.  There’s something the matter with poor Flossie’s back, and she can’t walk.  The doctors say it’s nervous and perhaps she’ll outgrow it; but I think she gets worse all the time.”

Hazel watched the speaker with eyes full of trouble and perplexity.  “Dear me,” she replied, “if you think God made her get that way, who do you think ’s going to cure her?”

“Nobody, it seems.  Her people have spent more than they can afford, trying and trying.  They’ve made themselves poor, but nobody’s helped her so far.”

Hazel’s eyes swept over the roses and lilies and then back to Miss Fletcher’s face.  The lady was regarding her curiously.  She saw that thoughts were hurrying through the mind of the little girl standing there with her doll in her arms.