Fanny, the Flower-Girl | Page 5

she met a lady and a little boy of about three years old, who directly held out his hands and began to beg for the flowers. His mamma stopped, and as Fanny was very poorly dressed, she thought it probable that she would sell her nosegay, and so she said,
"Will you give that bunch of flowers to my little boy, and I will pay you for it?"
"Please, ma'am, they are for grandmother," said Fanny blushing, and thinking she ought to give the flowers directly, and without money to any one who wished for them.
"But perhaps your grand-mother would rather have this sixpence?" said the lady. And Mrs. Newton's friend, who had just come up, said,
"Well, my dear, take the lady's sixpence, and let her have the flowers if she wishes for them."
So Fanny held the flowers to the lady, who took them and put the sixpence in her hand. Fanny wished much to ask for one rose, but she thought it would not be right to do so, when the lady had bought them all: and she looked at them so very longingly that the lady asked if she were sorry to part with them.
"Oh! no, ma'am," cried her friend, "she is not at all sorry--come now, don't be a fool, child," she whispered, and led Fanny on.
"That is a good bargain for you," she added as she went on; "that spoiled little master has his own way, I think; it would be well for you, and your grandmother too, if you could sell sixpenny worth of flowers every day."
"Do you think I could, ma'am?" said Fanny, opening her hand and looking at her sixpence, "this will buy something to do poor granny good; do you think Mr. Simpson would give me a nosegay every day?"
"If you were to pay him for it, he would," said her friend; "suppose you were to go every morning about five o'clock, as many others do, and buy some flowers, and then sell them at the market; you might earn something, and that would be better than being idle, when poor Mrs. Newton is not able to do for herself and you."
So when Fanny got back, she gave her dear grandmother the sixpence.
"The Lord be praised!" said Mrs. Newton, "for I scarcely knew how I was to get a loaf of bread for thee or myself to-morrow."
And then Fanny told her the plan she had formed about the flowers.
Mrs. Newton was very sorry to think her dear child should be obliged to stand in a market place, or in the public streets, to offer anything for sale; but she said, "Surely it is Providence has opened this means of gaining a little bread, while I am laid here unable to do anything; and shall I not trust that Providence with the care of my darling child?"
So from this time forth little Fanny set off every morning before five o'clock, to the nursery garden; and the nursery-man was very kind to her, and always gave her the nicest flowers; and instead of sitting down with the great girls, who went there also for flowers or vegetables, and tying them up in bunches, Fanny put them altogether in her little basket, and went away to her grandmother's room, and spread them out on the little table that poor Mrs. Newton might see them, while the sweet dew was yet sparkling on their bright leaves.
Then she would tell how beautiful the garden looked at that sweet early hour; and Mrs. Newton would listen with pleasure, for she loved a garden. She used to say, that God placed man in a garden when he was happy and holy; and when he was sinful and sorrowful, it was in a garden that the blessed Saviour wept and prayed for the sin of the world; and when his death had made atonement for that sin, it was in a garden his blessed body was laid.
Mrs. Newton taught Fanny many things from flowers; she was not a bad teacher, in her own simple way, but Jesus Christ, who was the best teacher the world ever had, instructed his disciples from vines and lilies, corn and fruit, and birds, and all natural things around them.
And while Fanny tied up her bunches of flowers, she would repeat some verses from the Holy Scriptures, such as this, "O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches." And afterwards she would repeat such pretty lines as these:--
"Not worlds on worlds, in varied form, Need we, to tell a God is here; The daisy, saved from winter's storm, Speaks of his hand in lines as clear.
"For who but He who formed the skies, And poured the day-spring's living flood, Wondrous alike in all He