Jewel Weed

Lena purred in the presence of comfort; but when you see a kitten

serenely snoozing before the fire, it does not do to leap to the

conclusion that this kitten would not know what was expected of her on

the back fence at midnight.

If storm and stress should ever come, Dick had himself helped her to

feel that beauty would fill the measure, wherever it fell short; that

however she might sin, beauty was her sufficient apology.

Mrs. Quincy, established in a little flat with a middle-aged submissive

slavey, was as nearly reconciled to fate as her nature would allow. Her

rooms were pleasantly furnished, but Lena's mother was full of the

genius of discord, and almost automatically she so rearranged her

surroundings that each particular article made strife with its neighbor.

Harmony and Mrs. Quincy could not live in the same house. When Lena paid

her duty visits (and she was irritated at the frequency with which

Dick's and Madame Percival's expectations seemed to exact them) she had

not only to listen in nauseated impatience to Mrs. Quincy's minute

questions and comments on people and things, but she had also to feel

her rapidly-developing tastes offended by her mother's domestic order.

"Miss Elton's real kind. She's been here twice since you was here. And

she brought flowers."

"Mother! And did you have a newspaper on top of that pretty little

table?"

"Land sakes! And if I didn't I should have to watch Sarah every minute

to see she didn't put something hot on it or scratch the mahogany top. I

can't afford to have everything I've got spoiled. No knowin' when I'll

git anything more--dependent as I am on other people."

"I'll bring you a pretty table-cover then."

"I'd like a red one. But I didn't suppose you'd think of gittin' one."

"Oh, mother, red wouldn't look well in this room."

"Now, I just think a bit of real bright red would hearten it up. If you

don't git red, you needn't git any, Lena Quincy, for I won't use it. Are

you goin' now? Seems to me you got precious little time for your old

mother since you put on all your fine lady airs."

And Lena? Have you ever watched a cecropia moth when it crawls out of

its dull gray prison of chrysalis? It is a moist, frail, tottering

creature with tiny wings folded against its quivering body, but as the

spring sunshine brings to play its magic and infuses its "subtle heats,"

there come shivers of growth. Great waves seem to pulsate from the body

into the wings, and with each wave goes color and strength. In quick

throbs they come at last until they look like a continuous current, and

before your eyes is a glorious bird-like creature, with damask wings

outspread, and flecked with peacock spots, hiding the slender body

within. It feels its strength, spreads and preens itself, and is away to

the forest to meet its fate.