Contrary Mary

As she passed through the garden, she saw that on a bush near the

fountain bloomed a late rose. She stooped and picked it, and flitting

in the dusk down the path, she entered the door which led to the Tower

stairway.

And when, an hour later, Roger Poole came into the quiet house, weary

and worn from the strain of a day in which he had tried to read his

letter with Mary's eyes, he found his room dark, except for the flicker

of the fire.

Feeling his way through the dimness, he pulled at last the little chain

of the electric lamp on his table. The light at once drew a circle of

gold on the dark dull oak. And within that circle he saw the answer to

his letter.

Wide open and illumined, lay John Ballard's old Bible. And across the

pages, fresh and fragrant as the friendship which she had given him,

was the late rose which Mary had picked in the garden.