them. We were away at school for a few years and when we went home
again they quite horrified our advanced, young ladyish taste. We
thought them vulgar, and between ourselves we fretted and scolded about
them and declared to each other that they were horrid, and that we were
ashamed to have any one visit us while those great, ugly, coarse things
filled the yard. We apologized for them to visitors and said they were
mother's flowers, but we hated them. And after a while we complained
about them to mother and said before her how common and coarse and
old-fashioned they were. And she, dear, gentle soul, said not a word,
but looked sadly out at the flowers she loved so well and had cared for
so long and so tenderly. And one day, after we had fretted and worried
her a long time about them, she said to us--I can see yet how she tried
to smile and disguise the sadness in her heart--that we might dig up
all the hollyhocks and plant other flowers in their places. And we
did. It stabs me to the heart now to think of it,--but we did it
joyfully.

"After we were married and went away from home--my sister to London and
I to Chicago--our mother came here to this town and soon died. In the
sorrow of that time, when first I knew how much and how tenderly I
loved her, I remembered about the hollyhocks, and at last realized how
brutally thoughtless and unfeeling we had been. So, in shame and
remorse, I did the one little thing that was all I could do, and
covered the grave of our dear, patient, gentle, saint-like mother with
the flowers she loved the best of all, but which we had not let her
gladden her life with. I do not pretend to know whether or not there
is a hereafter, or whether there is anything more of her than what lies
under those red flowers back there. But often I wish--oh, how I
wish!--that it may be so, and that from somewhere her spirit may look
down and see and be pleased by the atonement I have tried to make!