ODOUR OF CHRYSANTHEMUMS

" Where are you ? "

" Here! " replied a child's sulky voice from
among the bushes. The woman looked piercingly
through the dusk.

" Are you at that brook ? " she asked sternly.

For answer the child showed himself before the
raspberry-canes that rose like whips. He was a
small, sturdy boy of five. He stood quite still,
defiantly.

" Oh ! " said the mother, conciliated. " I thought
you were down at that wet brook--and you re-
member what I told you----"

The boy did not move or answer.

" Come, come on in," she said more gently, " it's
getting dark. There's your grandfather's engine
coming down the line ! "

The lad advanced slowly, with resentful, taciturn
movement. He was dressed in trousers and waist-
coat of cloth that was too thick and hard for the
size of the garments. They were evidently cut
down from a man's clothes.

As they went slowly towards the house he tore
at the ragged wisps of chrysanthemums and dropped
the petals in handfuls along the path.

" Don't do that--it does look nasty," said his
mother. He refrained, and she, suddenly pitiful,
broke off a twig with three or four wan flowers and
held them against her face. When mother and son
reached the yard her hand hesitated, and instead of
laying the flower aside, she pushed it in
her apron-band. The mother and son stood at the foot
of the three steps looking across the bay of lines at
the passing home of the miners. The trundle of