"Oh, grandmother! you'll make yourself such a mess!" cried Irene,
clinging to her.
"You darling! do you think I care more for my dress than for my little
girl? Beside--look here!"
As she spoke she set her down, and Irene saw to her dismay that the
lovely dress was covered with the mud of her fall on the mountain
road.
But the lady stooped to the fire, and taking from it, by the stalk in
her fingers, one of the burning roses, passed it once and again and a
third time over the front of her dress; and when Irene looked, not a
single stain was to be discovered.
"There!" said her grandmother, "you won't mind coming to me now?"
But Irene again hung back, eyeing the flaming rose which the lady held
in her hand.
"You're not afraid of the rose--are you?" she said, and she was about to
throw it on the hearth again.
Madhuri Noah
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