She took from her bosom a little flower that had been pinned there. It lay, a purple star, in the hollow of her hand. “It grew in the sun. It is the first flower of spring.” She put it to her lips, then laid it upon the window ledge beside my hand. “I have brought you evil gifts, — foes and strife and peril. Will you take this little purple flower — and all my heart beside?”

I bent and kissed first the tiny blossom, and then the lips that had proffered it. “I am very rich,” I said.

The sun was now low, and the pines in the square and the upright of the pillory cast long shadows. The wind had fallen and the sounds had died away. It seemed very still. Nothing moved but the creeping shadows until a flight of small white-breasted birds went past the window.