THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
279 
very obstinate and perverse, fits of ill-temper have a 
trick of thawing out and blowing away, under the in¬ 
fluence of sunbeams and little breezes, such as were 
shining and rustling everywhere that day. Justat first, 
however, Amy was more inclined to brood over her 
grievances than to notice what was going on around 
her. 
“Mamma says the time would not hang so heavily on 
my hands if 1 were to employ myself.” she grumbled, 
“ but what is there for me to do? I have no piano, and 
no books except those that I have read again and again. 
I have done all the fancy-work that I brought with me, 
and how I am to employ myself I really cannot see.” 
Just here Amy paused to look at a field which was 
covered with sumach, whose velvety cones rose from 
amidst their scarlet sprays, making the whole ground 
one blaze of splendor. Then her eye traveled a little 
farther and fell upon a tiny brown house, which faced 
tiie road. It was only a story and a half high and it 
had small-paned windows, which glinted out from under 
the broad eaves like bright, knowing eyes looking out 
of a withered old face. 
“ I wonder whether the people who live there enjoy 
life,” thought Amy. “ I know I shouldn’t. Just think 
of it—to be buried off here, a mile away even from stu¬ 
pid little Mortlake. O, dear.” 
Amy sighed and shivered as she thought of the misery 
of such a fate, but she forgot it again as her eye fell 
upon what was, certainly, the finest clump of Golden- 
rod she had ever seen. It grew upon the opposite side of 
the road from the cottage, on a bank four or five feet 
high. The afternoon sun, slanting upon it, was scarcely 
brighter or more golden than the soft, feathery blossoms 
which clothed so thickly its green, outstretched arms. 
A wooden fence beliind it, all draped and garlanded 
with Virginia Creeper, made a deep-crimson background 
for the graceful golden-crowned plant, and the whole 
was a dream of gorgeous coloring that Amy looked at 
until she was filled with longing. It was rather a 
scramble to the top of the bank, but Amy's young 
limbs achieved it, and she dropped on her knees beside 
the plant. 
“You beautiful thing!” she cried. “It is a shame 
that you should be wasted here. I shall take you home 
and put you in my own particular peacock-blue vase, 
where you will be a tiling of joy to everybody.” 
Amy’s knife was sharp and the Golden-rod stems 
were fragile. Just as the last blossom fell, a small bare¬ 
headed girl came flying across the road from the little 
brown house. 
“O, lady ! lady!” cried the child, breathlessly, “don’t 
pick them. O, don’t. They’re Jenny’s flowers !” 
Then, seeing that it was too late, the child stopped 
short, with a look of dismay, and burst into tears. 
“Who are you and what is the matter” asked Amy, 
but the child could not speak for crying. 
“ Wait, I’m coming down,” said Amy, and gathering 
up her sheaf of blossoms, she leaped lightly down. 
“Now stop crying and tell me who you are and who 
Jenny is, and why you call these her flowers” 
The little girl dried hor eyes upon her apron and 
looked up. She was a pretty little tiling, though her 
blue eyes were red and swollen, and her face tear- 
stained. 
“I’m Nelly Leavitt,” she said, “ and Jenny is my sis¬ 
ter. We live over there, in that little brown house. 
She’s sick, Jenny is. It’s—O, so long ago now! she 
tumbled down and hurt her poor back, and she’s been 
in bed ever since. That’s her window, the little one un¬ 
der the roof that looks this way. She can see the bank 
from it, and the leaves waving, and the birds flying, and 
the little white clouds sailing over all. And she was so 
pleased when the vine turned red and the golden-rod 
came. She lay and looked at it all day long. Some¬ 
times the tears came into her eyes when she looked, and 
once I heard her say, very softly, ‘ Isn’t God good to 
give me such a beautiful thing to look at ? I never feel 
tired nor lonesome any more ! And now—’ ” 
The thought of that “now” was too much for Nelly. 
She began to cry again, and Amy felt a choke at her 
own throat, and a strange, sympathetic dimness in her 
eyes. 
“O, Nelly!” she cried, “I am just as sorry as I can 
be. I would not have touched the flowers for the world 
if I had known. May I go over and tell Jenny myself 
how sorry I am ? ” 
Nelly looked up into Amy’s face with solemn, ques¬ 
tioning eyes. Then, as if the real grief she read there 
had moved her, she held out her hand. “ Yes,” she 
said, “You may come.” 
I doubt whether Amy had ever been in such a tiny 
house before. It was like a doll’s house, she thought; 
but when she reached Jenny’s room she forgot every¬ 
thing else at sight of the little patient face upon the pil¬ 
low. 
Jenny looked up in surprise at the sight of the young 
lady, and the wistful expression of the great black eyes 
went straight to Amy’s heart. 
“O, Jenny! I am so sorry!” she cried, “Nelly told 
me after I had picked those flowers, and I felt as if I 
never could forgive myself.” 
“You could not know,” said Jenny, and then stopped 
with a little choke in her voice and tried to wink away 
a tear. “ I get so weak, lying here,’’she said,apologeti¬ 
cally, but Amy broke in eagerly: 
“ I have brought the flowers over to you, Jenny; will 
you have them ? See how beautiful they are near by.” 
Jenny looked at the blossoms which Amy had scat¬ 
tered upon the bed; she touched them gently with her 
thin, delicate fingers. 
“They will wither,” she said; “it seems like a mur¬ 
der. A few minutes ago they were so fresh and strong, 
standing up there in the sunshine. They looked as if 
they might live forever.” 
“ But they would not have lived forever, even there,” 
said Amy, softly. 
“No,” said Jenny. Then she stretched out her hand 
to Amy. “It is good of you to be sorry,” she said, 
“but—but, please, I’d rather not seen them anymore. 
It seems so sad, as if they were dead and knew it. They 
were like friends to me out there, but here it is differ¬ 
ent.” 
Amy stood silent and thoughtful for a moment. Then 
she said: 
“ If I could do any thing to make up, I should be so- 
glad, Jenny. Do you like books?” 
“ Not very much,” said Jenny, “ I can’t read well 
enough to make them out very well, and thinking about 
them makes my head ache. They say so much more 
than you can get hold of and it worries you to think 
what more they mean to say, and you can’t under¬ 
stand.” 
