“Did she not speak truly?” asked Mr. Willet, in a low, earnest voice.

“What is that?” inquired Mrs. Markland, who was not sure that she had heard her daughter correctly.

“Flora say that this flower is only the bodily form of a spiritual flower; and that, without the latter, the former would have no existence.”

Mrs. Markland let her eyes fall to the floor, and mused for some moments.

“A new thought to me,” she at length said, looking up.  “Where did you find it, Flora?”

“I have believed this ever since I could remember any thing,” replied Flora.

“You have?”

“Yes, ma’am.  It was among the first lessons that I learned from my mother.”

“Then you believe that every flower has a spirit,” said Mrs. Markland.

“Every flower has life,” was calmly answered.

“True.”

“And every different flower a different life.  How different, may be seen when we think of the flower which graces the deadly nightshade, and of that which comes the fragrant herald of the juicy orange.  We call this life the spiritual flower.”

“A spiritual flower!  Singular thought!” Mrs. Markland mused for some time.

“There is a spiritual world,” said Mr. Willet, in his gentle, yet earnest way.

“Oh, yes.  We all believe that.”  Mrs. Markland fixed her eyes on the face of Mr. Willet with a look of interest.

“What do we mean by a world?”

Mrs. Markland felt a rush of new ideas, though seen but dimly, crowding into her mind.

“We cannot think of a world,” said Mr. Willet, “except as filled with objects, whether that world be spiritual or natural.  The poet, in singing of the heavenly land, fails not to mention its fields of ‘living green,’ and ‘rivers of delight.’  And what are fields without grass, and flowers, and tender herb?  If, then, there be flowers in the spiritual world, they must be spiritual flowers.”

“And that is what Flora meant?” said Mrs. Markland.

“Nothing more,” said Flora; “unless I add, that all flowers in the natural world derive their life from flowers in the spiritual world; as all other objects in nature have a like correspondent origin.”

“This comes to me as an entirely new idea,” said Mrs. Markland, in a thoughtful way.  “Yet how beautiful!  It seems to bring my feet to the verge of a new world, and my hand trembles with an impulse to stretch itself forth and lift the vail.”

“Do not repress the impulse,” said Mrs. Willet, laying a hand gently upon one of Mrs. Markland’s.

“Ah!  But I grope in the dark.”