Golden Moments / Bright Stories for Young Folks

AMONG THE DAISIES.
Fräulein Hoffman always gave the girls at her school a holiday on the tenth of June. It was her birthday; and though the old lady would not allow her pupils to make her any presents, saying, in her firm manner, Such things speedily become a tax, my dears, yet she was always pleased that they should decorate the schoolrooms in her honor, and hang a handsome wreath round her father's picture.
So on the evening before the birthday the day-girls would bring baskets of flowers, and the big schoolroom table was brought out into the garden, and there the wreaths and garlands were made amid much chattering and laughing by the happy children.
There, said Marie Schmidt, with a satisfied smile, as she held up a large wreath for general admiration. That's finished at last! and I flatter myself that the old gentleman never had so handsome a decoration in his lifetime as I have now made for his picture.
The girls laughed; but gentle Adela Righton, the only English girl at the school, said quietly, Take care, Marie; Fräulein Hoffman might hear you, and it would hurt her feelings to think that we were laughing at her father.
I don't want to laugh at any one, you sober old Adela, returned the reckless Marie. I only think the old gentleman's hooked nose and beady black eyes will look very well under my wreath of lilies and roses.
Adela said no more, for she saw that her words only excited Marie; and fortunately at that moment a diversion was created by a girl coming into the garden with two immense baskets of cabbage-roses and white moss-buds.
What! more flowers? Why could you not bring them sooner, you tiresome girl? exclaimed Lotta, who, having finished her garland for the schoolroom window, was more inclined for a romp than for any other flower-wreathing.
Throw them away! bury them in a hole! said impetuous Marie, getting up and shaking the petals off her dress. We've done the wreaths now, Sophie, so your flowers have come too late. I'll tell you what, though: we might fasten a rose to the end of Fanny's pig-tails, and then they would indeed be rose-red.