At this instant poor Margery came in: but could scarcely believe her senses, when she saw Miss Emma Selwhyn, the heiress of the rich Squire of Heathwood Park, sitting on the wooden stool before the fire, in familiar conversation with her daughter Fanny!
Emma very soon explained the nature of her errand, and drawing out her red morocco purse, presented Margery with the two remaining half-crowns that were in it. "There," cried she, "take this money; it will buy you some victuals when you are hungry. It is entirely my own, for my papa gave it to me to do whatever I liked with it, so I shall now go home quite contented and happy; and one day or other, when I am grown a great woman, I will have a garden full of primroses, and that will always make me remember Fanny."
With this observation Emma retired, taking with her the blessings of the poor widow, and the prayers of a fatherless child! and these, my young reader, are of great importance, and should never be lightly esteemed. They will make you happy when you have nothing else to make you so, because you cannot obtain these blessings except by the performance of kind and benevolent actions.
Emma, on returning from her visit of mercy, was rewarded by the warm approbation and fond endearments of her beloved parents; and I am happy to add, that she lived to witness the return of many joyful birth-days, on which occasions the red morocco purse was always replenished with the sum of four half crowns, with the same permission that she had hitherto obtained from her papa. Two of these pieces were regularly bestowed on Susannah her old nurse; and as there yet remained two at the bottom of the purse, my reader will probably guess what Emma did with them. They were, in fact, reserved as a present for her young favourite primrose girl, Fanny of the forest, who ever gratefully remembered the fortunate hour when she first beheld little Emma, to whom she sold a penny bunch of primroses on the morning of her birth-day.
THE END.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY COX AND BAYLIS, GREAT QUEEN STREET.