“That was what Plato thought,” said the other with a smile, “and many other wise people.”

“I only wish that they might bloom forever,” said the girl, “I should try it.”

Her companion had been lost in watching her, and now as she paused he said:  “Sometimes, I have been happy with the roses, too, Miss Davis.  Here is some music for your flower.”  She gazed at him eagerly, and he recited, half laughingly: 

  “Wild rose, wild rose, sing me thy song,
    Come, let us sing it together!—­
  I hear the silver streamlet call
    From his home in the dewy heather.”

  “Let us sing the wild dance with the mountain breeze,
    The rush of the mountain rain,
  And the passionate clasp of the glowing sun
    When the clouds are rent again.”

  “They tell us the time for the song is short,
    That the wings of joy are fleet;
  But the soul of the rose has bid me sing
    That oh, while it lasts ’tis sweet!”

Afterwards Helen stood for a moment in silence; then a happy idea came to her mind, and she turned towards the hedge of roses once more and threw back her head upon the wind and took a deep breath and began singing a very beautiful melody.

As it swelled out Helen’s joy increased until her face was alight with laughter, and very wonderful to see; she stood with the rose tossing in one of her hands, and with the other pressed upon her bosom,—­“singing of summer in full-throated ease.”  One might have been sure that the roses knew what she was saying, and that all about her loved her for her song.

Yet the girl had just heard that the wings of joy are fleet; and she was destined to find even then that it was true.  For when she stopped she turned to her companion with a happy smile and said, “Do you know what that is that I was singing?” When he said “No,” she went on, “It is some wild-rose music that somebody made for me, I think.  It is in the same book as the ‘Water Lily’ that I played you.”  And then in a flash the fearful memory of that evening came over the girl, and made her start back; for a moment she stood gazing at her friend, breathing very hard, and then she lowered her eyes and whispered faintly to herself, “And it was not a month ago!”

There was a long silence after that, and when Helen looked up again the joy was gone out of her face, and she was the same frightened soul as before.  Her lips were trembling a little as she said, “Mr. Howard, I feel somehow that I have no right to be quite happy, for I have done nothing to make myself good.”  Then, thinking of her friend, she added, “I am spoiling your joy in the roses!  Can you forgive me for that?” As he answered that he could, Helen turned away and said, “Let us go into the woods, because I do not like to see them any more just now.”