"Only leaves now, miss; but I take real good care of 'em, and mammy says they will blow again next spring," answered Betty, showing her poor little garden, which consisted of the hyacinth, tulip, and one stout dandelion, blooming bravely in an old teapot.
"That will be a long time to wait, won't it?"
"Yes'm; but I go and take peeks at them flowers in the shop, and once the man gave me a pink that hadn't no stem. Maybe he will again, and so I'll get along," said Betty, softly touching her cheerful dandelion as if it were a friend.
"I wish you would come and see my garden, little Betty. You should pick as many flowers as you liked, and play there all day long. I suppose your mother couldn't spare you for a visit, could she?"
Betty's face shone at the blissful thought, then the smile faded, and she shook her head, saying, steadily, "No, miss, I guess she couldn't, for she gets so tired, I like to help her by carrying home the clothes. Some day, maybe, I can come."
Something in the patient little face touched Helen, and made her feel as if she had been too busy thinking of her own burden to help others bear theirs. She longed to do something, but did not know how till Mrs. Simms showed her the way, by saying, as she stroked the frizzly little head that leaned against her,—
"Betty thinks a heap of flowers, and 'pears to git lots of comfort out of 'em. She's a good child, and some day we are going to see the country, soon as ever we can afford it."
"Meantime the country must come to you," said Helen, with a happy thought shining in her face. "If you are willing, I will make a nice little plan with Betty, so she can have a posy all the time. I shall come in town twice a week to take my German lessons, and if Betty will be at the corner of the Park, by the deer, every Wednesday and Saturday morning at ten o'clock, I'll have a nice nosegay for her."
If she had proposed to present the child with all the sweeties in Copeland's delightful shop, it would not have given greater joy. Betty could only dance a jig of rapture among the wash-tubs, and Mrs. Simms thank Helen with tears in her eyes.
"Ain't she just like a good fairy, mammy?" said Betty, settling down in an empty clothes-basket to brood over the joyful prospects.