Fanny, the Flower-Girl

Fanny, the Flower-Girl

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fanny, the Flower-Girl, by Selina
Bunbury Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to
check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or
redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: Fanny, the Flower-Girl
Author: Selina Bunbury
Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6757] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on January 23,
2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, FANNY,
THE FLOWER-GIRL ***

Avinash Kothare, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.

FANNY, THE FLOWER-GIRL;
OR, HONESTY REWARDED.
TO WHICH ARE ADDED OTHER TALES.
BY SELINA BUNBURY.

FANNY, THE FLOWER-GIRL
"Come, buy my flowers; flowers fresh and fair. Come, buy my flowers.
Please ma'am, buy a nice bunch of flowers, very pretty ones, ma'am.
Please, sir, to have some flowers; nice, fresh ones, miss; only just
gathered; please look."
Thus spoke, or sometimes sung, a little girl of perhaps eight years old,
holding in her hand a neat small basket, on the top of which lay a clean
white cloth, to shade from the sun the flowers which she praised so
highly, and a little bunch of which she presented to almost every
passer-by, in the hope of finding purchasers; while, after one had
passed rudely on, another had looked at her young face and smiled,
another had said, "What a nice child!" but not one had taken the
flowers, and left the penny or the half-penny that was to pay for them
the little girl, as if accustomed to all this, only arranged again the pretty
nosegays that had been disarranged in the vain hope of selling them,
and commenced anew in her pretty singing tone, "Come, buy my
flowers; flowers fresh and fair."
"Your flowers are sadly withered, my little maid," said a kind,
country-looking gentleman, who was buying some vegetables at a stall
near her.
"Oh, sir! I have fresh ones, here, sir; please look;" and the child lifted
up the cover of her basket, and drew from the very bottom a bunch of
blossoms on which the dew of morning still rested.

"Please to see, sir; a pretty rose, sir, and these pinks and mignonette,
and a bunch of jessamine, sir, and all for one penny."
"Bless thee! pretty dear!" said the old lame vegetable-seller, "thou'lt
make a good market-woman one of these days. Your honor would do
well to buy her flowers, sir, she has got no mother or father, God help
her, and works for a sick grandmother."
"Poor child!" said the old gentleman. "Here, then, little one, give me
three nice nosegays, and there is sixpence for you."
With delight sparkling in every feature of her face, and her color
changed to crimson with joy, the little flower-girl received in one hand
the unusual piece of money; and setting her basket on the ground,
began hastily and tremblingly to pick out nearly half its contents as the
price of the sixpence; but the gentleman stooped down, and taking up at
random three bunches of the flowers, which were not the freshest, said,
"Here, these will do; keep the rest for a more difficult customer. Be a
good child; pray to God, and serve Him, and you will find He is the
Father of the fatherless."
And so he went away; and the flower-girl, without waiting to put her
basket in order, turned to the old vegetable-seller, and cried, "Sixpence!
a whole sixpence, and all at once. What will grandmother say now?
See!" and opening her hand, she displayed its shining before her
neighbor's eyes.
"Eh!" exclaimed the old man, as he approached his eyes nearer to it.
"Eh! what is this? why thou hast twenty sixpences there; this is a
half-sovereign!"
"Twenty sixpences! why the gentleman said, there is sixpence for
thee," said the child.
"Because he didn't know his mistake," replied the other; "I saw him
take the piece out of his waistcoat-pocket without looking."
"Oh dear! what shall I do?" cried