The Penn's Grove record., 1886-09-11
4 BUNCH OF WHITE LILAC.

$50 much2 1t is too muchP' said a
soft. plaintiye voice behind me.
I turned-to see a small creature
standing on tiptoe before a flower stand
at the entrance to Covent Garden as
was passing.
In this position, her head was about
on a level with a huge bunch of white
lilac: and the rough straw hat pushed
back. and tie fair curls glIttered IN the
sunshine, as the little face was fairly
buried in the fragrant bloom.
I stopped short; the bright hair and
the pale flowers both arrested me.
Swift as thought, they had caught my
memory back to a bowery seat under a
white lilac clump. and a golden head
upon a level with my shoulder, and a
face that for fairness and sweetness
might have put the white hlacs them
selves to the blush.
Somehow | could not help wondering
if this face would be like that face, as
these blossoms were like those OF the
mast. faded now more than half-a-doZen
years ago.
And it was startlingly like. So like.
chat I could almost believe that three
times half-a-dozen years had vanished,
and my little playmate, May-my May
Queen, as | used to call her stood De-
fore me in the lilacs.
The child looked up at me, frankly
and c%onidingly, out of those great blue
eyes-that might have been Mays eyes
fOrgetful that there had ever been a Dill
fer ~uuarrel and a parting.
What a folly in me to be thinking OF
her nowi But, thinking of her, some.
how l could not help answering those
soft, appealing eyes. ,..,
"You wanted the flowerS' hltle
one?"
ayes. sir. Please sir, the big white
ones"
"You like white lilacs?"
The flower. girl behind the stall was
singing out a great, sweet bunch, re-
sponsive to the coin | had laid beside
it. But the child was shaking heI
small head.
~ like those better she said, point
NO to a mass of yellow datfodlils,
but Little Mother, doesn't h JUST
loves the big white lilacs?:" They're fol
her, sir; and will you make TIL buy
themP"
She showed me her penny, over
which the rosy fingers were SHUT Jeai'
ously.
keep your penny, child, and 1 will
buy the lilacs for you"
But she shook her head. go.
"No; Little Mother was crying this
morning when l woke up-did you
know grown-up people ever criedE,,
and she told me it was because she hau
no white lllacs on this May-day. WASN'T
that o funny thing to cry forr Ant
then she told me she was Queen OF the
Nav once, and she had TO get down OF
her throne, and wander away and
away from the white lilacs, and out IN
to the cold, dark streets here. l DOM
think they're cold and dark, do your
the little thing added, looking up At me
In the sunshine.
Suddenly a wondering expressing
grew in her eyes. -.
"You are not going to cry, are your
she asked.
If Little Mother had felt the blank
sense OF misery which had been closing
in and blotting out the bright day from
me. as the child prattled on, she would
have been too rear to despair for tears.
/ could only hope her palm was less d a
mine. The small hand ! took Int
mine had torn open an unhealed
wound; and now it must lead me unit
l could see her Little Mother face tc
face, and know if it were indeed my
lost sweetheart, May Elliston.
mo, mol / am not going to cry"
said. "But l am going home with you
to see your Little Mother. See, we VIII
take her all these lilacs."
Eyes, but I must buy them myself, ,
she declared. ~ didn't tell her so; but
L promised myself to take my bright
new penny as soon as | had done my
lesson and Little Mother was at hei
work and wouldn't miss me-"
So the bright new penny was lald
down on the counter beside my coin,
and the little maid, her pinafore heaped
with a gay bunch of daffodIls amongst
the lilacs, trotted on, her free hand
trustingly in mine.
1t was not until we were some dis
lance from the stall, and the knot oil
wayfarers about it, that l could give
voice to the questions burning in my
heart.
"What is your mothers manner"
"Why, Little Mother of course
What else should it be2"
"And your W manner"
"Bertie."
"What else?"
"Why, nothing elsel" she said with
wonder in the uplifted eyes which were
so like Nays.
My heart grew heavier and heavier
For Berthe was the name OF Mays
scapegrace brother who was lost at sea
when my little sweetheart had moi
much more than entered her teens. She
had all a young girls romantic deVo'
ton to him. What mor likely than
that she should have named her child
after him4
There were ugly stories whispered
about of Berthe Elliston before the YES
sci was wrecked in which he was Zee,
ing from his c~ountry-out Of reach oil
the law, it was rumored. But May
would be sure not to believe the stories
she was never a half-hearted partisan.
If every one had not known that the
vessel went down with every soul on
board, it might have been supposed thar
Nav had oona IN her brother some