Such weather is always fatal to the selling of flowers; at such times the ladies who are out in their fine summer dresses are little inclined to stop and make purchases. Gentlemen don’t want button-holes when they are wrapped up in mackintoshes; in short, the wet weather makes the pleasure-seeking public selfish.
Jill had been rather late arriving at her stand, and in consequence the gentlemen who almost always stopped to buy a button-hole from the handsome young flower girl had carried their custom elsewhere.
With the exception of the lady who had bought a sixpenny bunch of poppies, Jill had only sold two or three pennyworth of flowers when the downpour of rain began. As to Molly, even her halfpenny button-holes, quite an anomaly in the trade, could scarcely attract under such depressing circumstances.
The volatile creature began to rock herself backwards and forwards, and bewail her hard lot. What should she do, if she did not sell her flowers? There was nothing at all in the house for little sick Kathleen.
“Not even money for the rint,” she moaned, “and that cruel baste of a landlord would think nothing of turning us both into the street.”
She poured her full tale of woe into Jill’s ears, who listened and made small attempts to comfort her.
“Look yere,” said Jill, suddenly, “I’ll tell yer a sort of a fairy tale, if you’ll listen.”
“Oh, glory!” exclaimed Molly, “and I loves them stories. But it’s moighty cowld I am. You spake on, honey, and I’ll listen. It’s comforting sometimes to picter things, but I’d rayther think of a right good dinner now than anything under the sun.”
“This isn’t a dinner,” said Jill, “but it’s lovely, and it’s true.”
“Fairy tales ain’t true,” interrupted Molly.