“I’ll bring the babes another sugar plum to-morrow. I haven’t a farthing to-night. Moll ran away with the earnings, and there is no one left to rob,” she said.
“Heyday,” and she ran lightly to the vase and caught up the flowers. “Take the flowers to the bright eyes, to make them brighter.” They would at least add cheerfulness to the room where Strings lived until she could bring something better.
As she looked at the roses, she began to realize how dear they were becoming to herself, for they were the King’s gift; and her heart beat quickly and she touched the great red petals lovingly with her lips.
Strings took the flowers awkwardly; and, as he did so, something fell upon the floor. He knelt and picked it up, in his eagerness letting the roses fall.
“A ring among the flowers, Mistress Nell,” he cried.
“A ring!” she exclaimed, taking the jewel quickly. Her lips pressed the setting. “Bless his heart! A ring from his finger,” she continued half aloud. “Is it not handsome, Strings?” Her eyes sparkled brightly and there was a triumphant smile upon her lips.
The fiddler’s face, however, was grave; his eyes were on the floor.
“How many have rings like that, while others starve,” he mused, seriously.
Nell held the jewel at arm’s length and watched its varying brightness in the candle-light. “We can moralize, now we have the ring,” she said, by way of rejoinder, then broke into a ringing laugh at her own way-of-the-world philosophizing. “Bless the giver!” she added, in a mood of rhapsody.
She turned, only again to observe the sad countenance of Strings. “Alack-a-day! Why do you not take the nosegay?” she asked, wonderingly; for she herself was so very happy that she could not see why Strings too should not be so.