Knowing that they should have the coming day in which to rest, Holcroft and
Alida had busied themselves with outdoor matters until late. She had been
planning her flower beds, cutting out the dead wood from some neglected
rosebushes and shrubbery, and had also helped her husband by sowing seed in
the kitchen garden back of the house. Then, weary, yet pleased with the labor
accomplished, they made a very leisurely supper, talking over garden matters
and farm prospects in general. Alida had all her flower seeds on the table
beside her, and she gloated over them and expatiated on the kind of blossoms
they would produce with so much zest that Holcroft laughingly remarked, "I
never thought that flowers would be one of the most important crops on the
place."

"You will think so some day. I can see, from the expression of your eyes,
that the cherry blossoms and now the apple blows which I put on the table
please you almost as much as the fruit would."

"Well, it's because I notice 'em. I never seemed to notice 'em much before."

"Oh, no! It's more than that," she replied, shaking her head. "Some people
would notice them, yet never see how pretty they were."

"Then they'd be blind as moles."

"The worst kind of blindness is that of the mind."

"Well, I think many country people are as stupid and blind as oxen, and I was
one of 'em. I've seen more cherry and apple blossoms this year than in all my
life before, and I haven't thought only of cherries and apples either."

"The habit of seeing what is pretty grows on one," she resumed. "It seems to