They passed beneath the deep shadows of the trees, and Helen led Mr. Howard to the spring where she had been with Arthur.  She sat down upon the seat, and then there was a long silence, the girl gazing steadfastly in front of her; she was thinking of the last time she had been there, and how it was likely that the pale, wan look must still be upon Arthur’s face.  Mr. Howard perhaps divined her thought, for he watched her for a long time without speaking a word, and then at last he said gently, as if to divert her attention, “Miss Davis, I think that you are not the first one whom the sight of the wild rose has made unhappy.”

Helen turned and looked at him, and he gazed gravely into her eyes.  For at least a minute he said nothing; when he went on his voice was much changed, and Helen knew not what to expect “Miss Davis,” he said, “God has given to the wild rose a very wonderful power of beauty and joy; and perhaps the man who looks at it has been dreaming all his life that somewhere he too might find such precious things and have them for his own.  When he sees the flower there comes to him the fearful realization that with all the effort of his soul he has never won the glory which the wild rose wears by Heaven’s free gift; and that perhaps in his loneliness and weakness he has even forgotten all about such high perfection.  So there rises within him a yearning of all his being to forget his misery and his struggling, and to lay all his worship and all his care before the flower that is so sweet; he is afraid of his own sin and his own baseness, and now suddenly he finds a way of escape,—­that he will live no longer for himself and his own happiness, but that his joy shall be the rose’s joy, and all his life the rose’s life.  Do you think, my dear friend, that that might please the flower?”

“Yes,” said Helen wonderingly, “it would be beautiful, if one could do it.”

The other spoke more gently still as he answered her, his voice trembling slightly:  “And do you not know, Miss Davis, that God has made you a rose?”

The girl started visibly; she whispered, “You say that to me, Mr. Howard?  Why do you say that to me?”

And he fixed his dark eyes upon her, his voice very low as he responded:  “I say it to you,—­because I love you.”

And Helen shrank back and stared at him; and then as she saw his look her own dropped lower and lower and the color mounted to her face.  Mr. Howard paused for a moment or two and then very gently took one of her hands in his, and went on: 

“Helen,” he said,—­“you must let me call you Helen—­listen to me a while, for I have something to tell you.  And since we both of us love the roses so much, perhaps it will be beautiful to speak of them still.  I want to tell you how the man who loves the flower needs not to love it for his own sake, but may love it for the flower’s; how one who really worships beauty, worships that which is not himself, and the