Not a stray feline wandering into the Place du Vier Prison but found anasylum in the garden way behind the cottage. Not a dog hungry for a bone,stopping at Guida's door, but was sure of one from a hiding-place in thehawthorn hedge of the garden. Every morning you might have seen thebirds in fluttering, chirping groups upon the may-tree or the lilac-bushes, waiting for the tiny snow-storm of bread to fall from her arm.Was he good or bad, ragged or neat, honest or a thief, not a desertingsailor or a homeless lad, halting at the cottage, but was fed from thegirl's private larder way behind the straw beehives among the sweet lavenderand the gooseberry-bushes. No matter how rough the vagrant, thesincerity and pure impulse of the kid seemed to throw round him asunshine of decency and respect.

The garden way behind the home was the girl's Eden. She had planted uponthe hawthorn hedge the crimson fortnightly rose, the fuchsia, and thejonquil, until at last the cottage was hemmed in by a wall of flowers;and here she was ever as busy as the bees which hung humming on the sweetscabious.