Fanny, the Flower-Girl | Page 3

as the flower of grass--but good morning, and thank you, sir," and away Fanny ran.
And now, before going on with my story, I must go back to tell who and what Fanny, the flower-girl, was.
Mrs. Newton, whom she called her grandmother, was now a poor old woman, confined to her bed by a long and trying illness, that had nearly deprived her of the use of her limbs. But she had not been always thus afflicted. Some years before, Mrs. Newton lived in a neat cottage near the road-side, two or three miles from one of the great sea-port towns of England. Her husband had good employment, and they were both comfortable and happy.
Just eight years from this time, it happened that one warm summer's day, Mrs. Newton went to look out from her cottage door down the road, and she saw a young woman standing there, leaning against a tree, and looking very faint and weak.
She was touched with pity and asked the poor traveller to walk into her house and rest. The young woman thankfully consented, for she said she was very ill; but she added, that her husband was coming after her, having been obliged to turn back for a parcel that was left behind at the house where they had halted some time before, and therefore she would sit near the door and watch for him.
Before, however, the husband came, the poor woman was taken dreadfully ill; and when he did arrive, good Mrs. Newton could not bear to put the poor creature out of the house in such a state; she became worse and worse. In short, that poor young woman was Fanny's mother, and when little Fanny was born, that poor sick mother died, and Fanny never saw a mother's smile.
The day after the young woman's death, kind Mrs. Newton came into the room where her cold body was laid out on the bed; and there was her husband, a young, strong-looking man, sitting beside it; his elbows were on his knees, and his face was hid in his open hands.
Mrs. Newton had the baby in her arms, and she spoke to its father as she came in; he looked up to her; his own face was as pale as death; and he looked at her without saying a word. She saw he was in too much grief either to speak or weep. So she went over silently to him, and put the little baby into his arms, and then said, "May the Lord look down with pity on you both."
As soon as the unhappy young man heard these compassionate words, and saw the face of his pretty, peaceful babe, he burst into tears; they rolled in large drops down on the infant's head.
Then in a short time he was able to speak, and he told Mrs. Newton his sad little history; how he had no one in the whole world to look with pity on him, or his motherless child; and how God alone was his hope in this day of calamity. His father had been displeased with him because he had married that young woman, whom he dearly loved; and he had given him some money that was his portion, and would do nothing else for him. The young man had taken some land and a house, but as the rent was too high, he could not make enough of the land to pay it; so he had been obliged to sell all his goods, and he had only as much money left as would, with great saving, carry him to America, where he had a brother who advised him to go out there.
"And now," said he, looking over at the pale face of his dear wife, "What shall I do with the little creature she has left me? how shall I carry it over the wide ocean without a mother to care for it, and nurse it?"
"You cannot do so," said Mrs. Newton, wiping her eyes; "leave it with me; I have no children of my own, my husband would like to have one; this babe shall lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter. I will nurse it for you until you are settled in America, and send or come for it."
The young man wept with gratitude; he wanted to know how he was to repay Mrs. Newton, but she said for the present she did not want payment, that it would be a pleasure to her to have the baby; and it would be time enough to talk about payment when the father was able to claim it, and take it to a home.
So the next day they buried the poor young woman, and soon after the young man went away and sailed off to America,