"Oh, you dear little soul!" Mousey cried, her face wreathed with smiles as she accepted the gift. "Thank you, Dolly. Did you pick them yourself?"
"All mine self!" Dolly said, nodding her curly head with an air of great satisfaction.
Meanwhile Dick was declining to part with his daisies. They were for his mother, he explained; he would not let the girls have them, but ran into the house shouting, "Muvver! Muvver!" at the top of his voice.
Shortly after that the bell rang for the school to reassemble, and there was no further opportunity that day for Mousey and Nellie Thomas to resume their conversation.
Mousey carried home the daisies which Dolly had given to her, and put them in water in her bedroom, where they revived, lifting their drooping heads and unfolding their pink-tipped petals. The little girl wondered how long it would take before the daisies grew on her mother's grave, and thought she would write to Aunt Eliza and ask if the grass was springing over the spot beneath which both her parents lay at rest.
It had always been Mrs. Abbot's desire to place a headstone over her husband's grave, but she had never been in the position to provide even the simplest stone. She had been buried in the same grave as her husband, and it was very unlikely, Mousey thought, that there would ever be a headstone to mark the place. On the evening of that same day, whilst Mr. Harding was allowing himself a few minutes in which to peruse the newspaper, he was somewhat astonished to hear his little cousin and his assistant conversing together in lowered tones, as they sat one on each side of the table in the parlour. Mousey had her lesson books in front of her, but she had finished her work, and was telling John Monday about Dolly and the bunch of daisies.
"She is the sweetest, dearest little girl I ever saw!" Mousey was saying; "and Dick's a darling, too."
"Who's Dick?" Mr. Harding asked sharply.
"He's Mrs. Downing's little boy," Mousey said; "he and Dolly are twins—only just three years old."
"I knew Mrs. Downing had children; but I didn't know how many," Mr. Harding remarked. "Twins, eh?"