Harry’s words were nearly left unsaid; for it happened that one evening he saw Jenny hurrying through the busy streets laden with the work she was taking home, and at a short distance behind he could make out John Wilson following rapidly in her steps.
The sight made the young man’s heart sink within his breast, and he was about to turn back when he saw that the young girl was panting beneath her burden, and half angrily he hastened up, and asked if he might carry it, determined for this time not to be driven away.
And it came to pass that evening that as they stepped into the quieter streets the bells of one of the old churches began to peal up joyfully for a practice, and it may be they inspired the young man with hope to declare his intentions, and then to his own surprise he grew warm and eloquent, reproaching his companion even for her conduct towards one who had loved her long and well.
“O Jenny!” he exclaimed, “I have always looked upon you as a violet growing therein—”
“A violet in the snow,” she said archly, as she gazed in his face; and—well, the street was very dark—he held her for a moment in his arms.
She shrank from him startled and angry, and he felt hurt once more.
“Ah!” he said bitterly, as they reached the door in the alley, “fine feathers make fine birds, and perhaps Jenny Blossom likes such birds to watch for her, and follow her about.”
“Can I help it, Harry?” said Jenny softly, as she laid one little work-scarred hand upon his. “I have no one to protect me,” and before he could speak again she had hurried up-stairs.
There must have been something more than the ordinary interpretation of those words, so effectually to drive away Harry Smith’s anger. Perhaps it arose from the way in which they were said. At all events John Wilson must have imagined that a fresh plague had broken out in the court, for he came near no more; and at one regular hour every evening Harry was to be seen accompanying the dainty little maiden to the warehouse, turning himself into a regular pack-horse with parcels, and all to the great hindrance of the emigrating scheme.
And so weeks—months passed, and then something more must have been said; for one day Harry Smith was seen busily carrying Jenny’s flower-pots from her lodging to his own home, which could have been from no other reason than that Jenny had at last consented to tend them there, and send brightness to the honest young fellow’s home. And so it passed, for from that time Jenny Blossom’s name faded out of the chronicles of Gutter-alley. Year after year, though, when tiny little blue-eyed children were born to Harry in the cold wintry season, there was a fancy of his which may be recorded. It was only the fancy of a rough, honest worker—a soldier in the fight for life; but all the same, the idea had its tinge of poetry. The idea was this—to say that the tiny blossoms that came to find this world in its wintry garment of purity were like Violets in the Snow.