determined to enter the lists. She offered to put a card on it for me so that they would know the name of the owner. This is what she wrote on the card:

"This plant is lent for decorative purposes."

That night there was an unusual atmosphere in her corner. She had a newly tallied cap on her head and her little Sunday shawl over her shoulders. Her candle was burning and the hearthstones had an extra coat of whitewash. She drew me up close beside her and told me a story.

"Once, a long, long time ago, God, feelin' tired, went to sleep an' had a nice wee nap on His throne. His head was in His han's an' a wee white cloud came down an' covered him up. Purty soon He wakes up an' says He:

"'Where's Michael?'

"'Here I am, Father!' said Michael.

"'Michael, me boy,' says God, 'I want a chariot and a charioteer!'

"'Right ye are!' says he. Up comes the purtiest chariot in the city of Heaven an' finest charioteer.

"'Me boy,' says God, 'take a million tons ov th' choicest seeds of th' flowers of Heaven an' take a trip around th' world wi' them. Scatther them,' says He, 'be th' roadsides an' th' wild places of th' earth where my poor live.'

"'Aye,' says the charioteer, 'that's jist like ye, Father. It's th' purtiest job of m' afther-life an' I'll do it finely.'

"'It's jist come t' Me in a dream,' says th' Father, 'that th' rich have all the flowers down there and th' poor haave nown at all. If a million tons isn't enough take a billion tons!'"

At this point I got in some questions about God's language and the kind of flowers.

"Well, dear," she said, "He spakes Irish t' Irish people and the charioteer was an Irishman."

"Maybe it was a wuman!" I ventured.

"Aye, but there's no difference up there."

"Th' flowers," she said, "were primroses, butthercups an' daisies an' th' flowers that be handy t' th' poor, an' from that day to this there's been flowers a-plenty for all of us everywhere!"

"Now you go to-morra an' gether a basketful an' we'll fix them up in th' shape of th' Pryamid of Egypt an' maybe ye'll get a prize."

I spent the whole of the following day, from dawn to dark, roaming over the wild places near Antrim gathering the flowers of the poor. My mother arranged them in a novel bouquet—a bouquet of wild flowers, the base of it yellow primroses, the apex of pink shepherd's sundials, and between the base and the apex one of the greatest variety of wild flowers ever gotten together in that part of the world.

It created a sensation and took first prize. At the close of the exhibition Mrs. James Chaine distributed the prizes. When my name was called I went forward slowly, blushing in my rags, and received a twenty-four piece set of china! It gave me a fit! I took it home, put it in her lap and danced. We held open house for a week, so that every man, woman and child in the community could come in and "handle" it.

Withero said we ought to save up and build a house to keep it in!

She thought that a propitious time to explain the inscription she put on the card.

"Ah, thin," I said, "shure it's thrue what ye always say."

"What's that, dear?"

"It's nice t' be nice."