“Yes,” replied Saffy, “but it would take such a long time to make all the flowers in the world that way!”

“So it would. But if a great many angels took it in hand, I suppose they could do it.”

“That can’t be how,” Saffy laughed. “You know the flowers come up out of the earth, and there isn’t room to cut them out there.”

“I think they must be cut and put together before they are made!” said Mark, very slowly and thoughtfully.

The supposition was greeted with a great burst of laughter from Cornelius. In the midst of a refined family he behaved as the blind and stupid generally behave to those who see what they cannot see. Mockery is the share they choose in the motions of life eternal.

“Stop, Cornelius!” said his father. “I suspect we have a young philosopher where you see only the silly little brother. He has, I fancy, got a glimpse of something he does not yet know how to say.”

“In that case,” said Cornelius, “he had better hold his tongue till he does know how to say it.”

It was not often he dared to speak so to his father, but he was growing less afraid of him, though not through increase of love.

“They take everything for clever the little idiot says,? he thought to himself. “Nobody made anything of me when I was his age!”

The mail was soon brought in. Among them was one for Mr. Raymount with a broad black border. He looked at the postmark.

“This must be the announcement of cousin Strafford’s death!” he said. “Someone told me she was not expected to live.”

“You did not tell me she was ill,” said his wife.

“I forgot to. It has been so many years since I had the least communication with her, or even heard anything of her. She was a strange old soul!”

“You used to be close to her, didn’t you, papa?” asked Hester.

“Yes, at one time. But we differed so entirely it was impossible it should last. She would think the most peculiar things about what I thought and meant, and then fall out upon me as being in favour of things I disliked quite as much as she did. She took no trouble to try to understand what I was really saying. But that is often the way with people. They hardly know what they think themselves and can hardly be expected to know what other people mean.”

“I can’t understand why people should quarrel so about their opinions,” said Mrs. Raymount.

Her husband took up the letter, slowly broke the large black seal and began to read. His wife sat looking at him, waiting in expectation.