Fanny, the Flower-Girl | Page 5

go with
her own daughter. Mrs. Newton was very glad to do so for she thought
it would be a nice amusement for Fanny.
The nurseryman was very kind to her; and when she was going away
gave her a fine bunch of flowers. Fanny was in great delight, for she
loved flowers and knew her dear grandmother loved them too. But as
she was coming back, and just as she was entering the streets, 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