Next day, Rosette, the little nursery-maid, brought Lady Mary an Indian basket full of Sweet-scented everlastings. This flower had a fragrant smell; the leaves were less downy than some of the earlier sorts, but were covered with a resinous gum, that caused it to stick to the fingers; it looked quite silky, from the thistledown, which, falling upon the leaves, were gummed down to the surface.
"The country folks," said Mrs. Frazer, "call this plant Neglected everlasting, because it grows on dry wastes by road-sides, among thistles and fireweed; but I love it for its sweetness; it is like a true friend— it never changes. See, my dear, how shining its straw-coloured blossoms and buds are, just like satin flowers."
"Nurse, it shall be my own flower," said the little girl, "and I will make a pretty garland of it, to hang over my own dear mamma's picture. Rosette says she will show me how to tie the flowers together; she has made me a pretty wreath for my doll's straw hat, and she means to make her a mat and a carpet too."
The little maid promised to bring her young lady some wreaths of the festoon pine; a low-creeping plant, with dry, green chaffy leaves, that grows in the barren pine woods, of which the Canadians make Christmas garlands, and also some of the winter berries, and spice berries, which look so gay in the fall and early spring, with berries of brightest scarlet, and shining dark green leaves, that trail over the ground on the gravelly hills and plains.
Nurse Frazer brought Lady Mary some sweetmeats, flavored with an extract of the spicy winter green, from the confectioner's shop; the Canadians being very fond of the flavor of this plant. The Indians chew the leaves, and eat the ripe mealy berries, which have something of the taste of the bay-laurel leaves. The Indian men smoke the leaves as tobacco.
One day, while Mrs. Frazer was at work in the nursery, her little charge came to her in a great state of agitation—her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were dancing with joy; she threw herself into her arms, and said, "Oh! dear nurse, I am going home to dear old England and Scotland. Papa and mamma are going away from Government House, and I am to return to the old country with them; I am so glad, are not you?"
But the tears gathered in Mrs. Frazer's eyes and fell fast upon the work she held in her hand. Lady Mary looked surprised, when she saw how her kind nurse was weeping.
"Nurse, you are to go too; mamma says so; now you need not cry, for you are not going to leave me."
"I cannot go with you, my dearest child," whispered her weeping attendant, "much as I love you; for I have a dear son of my own. I have but him, and it would break my heart to part from him;" and she softly put aside the bright curls from Lady Mary's fair forehead, and tenderly kissed her. "This child is all I have in the world to love me, and when his father, my own kind husband, died, he vowed to take care of me, and cherish me in my old age, and I promised that I would never leave him; so I cannot go away from Canada with you, my lady, though I dearly love you."
"Then, Mrs. Frazer, I shall be sorry to leave Canada; for when I go home,
I shall have no one to talk to me about beavers, and squirrels, and
Indians, and flowers, and birds."