46 THE BOUQUET. 



wants to give them something useful — a bushel of potatoes or a 

 ham, for example." 



" Why, certainly, potatoes and ham must be had ; but, having 

 ministered to the first and most craving w^ants, why not add any 

 little pleasure or gratifications that we may have it in our power to 

 give. I know that there are many of the poor who have fine feeling 

 and a keen sense of the beautiful, which rusts out and dies because 

 they are too hard pressed to procure it one gratification. Poor Mrs. 

 Stephens, for example ; I know she would enjoy birds, and flowers, 

 and music as much as I do. I have seen her eye kindle as she has 

 looked on the things in our drawing-room, and yet not one beautiful 

 thing can she command. From necessity, her room, her clothing, 

 all that she has, must be coarse and plain. You should have seen 

 the almost rapture that she and Mary felt when I offered them my 

 Rose." 



" Dear me ! all this may be true, but I never thought of it before. 

 I never thought that these hard-working people had any idea of 

 taste ! " 



" Then why do you see so often the Geranium or Rose carefully 

 nursed in an old cracked tea-pot in the poorest room, or the Morn- 

 ing Glories planted in a box, and made to twine around the window. 

 Do not all these show how every human heart yearns after the 

 beautiful ? You remember how Mary our washerwoman sat up a 

 whole night after a hard day's work, that she might make her first 

 baby a pretty little dress to be baptized in." 



" Yes, I remember, and how I laughed at you for making such a 

 tasty little cap for it." 



" Well, Katy, I think that the look of perfect delight and satis- 

 faction with which the poor girl regarded her baby in its new dress 

 and cap, was something quite worth creating; 1 do believe she 

 could not have thanked me more, if I had sent her a barrel of 

 flour." 



'• Well, I never before thought of giving to the poor anything but 



