"Ah, cruel!" cried Ammon.
"I find a great deal in life that is cruel, from our standpoints," said Elnora. "It takes the large wisdom of the Unfathomable, the philosophy of the Almighty, to bear some of it. But there is always right somewhere, and at last it seems to come."
"Will it come to you?" asked Ammon, who found himself suffering intensely.
"It has come," said the girl serenely. "It came a week ago. It came in fullest measure when my mother ceased to regret that I had been born. Now, work that I love has come—that should constitute happiness. A little farther along is my violet bed. I want you to see it."
As Philip Ammon followed he definitely settled upon the name of the unusual feature of Elnora's face. It should be called "experience." She had known hard experiences early in life. Suffering had been her familiar more than joy. He watched her with intense earnestness, his heart deeply moved. She led him into a swampy half-open space in the woods, stopped and stepped aside. Ammon uttered a cry of surprised delight.
A few decaying logs were scattered around, the grass grew in tufts long and fine. Blue flags waved, clusters of cowslips nodded gold heads, but the whole earth was purple with a thick blanket of violets nodding from stems a foot in length. Elnora knelt, and slipping her fingers through the leaves and grasses to the roots, gathered a few violets and gave them to Philip.
