"Please, mother," answered Florry, feeling all the time as if every word and act of kindness added to her burden. She drank her coffee without tasting it, and then went out into the yard, and sat down on the door-step, with her head in her hands, thinking.
"I know what I will do," said she, at last: "I will carry the plant back to-morrow, and put it in its place; and if any one sees me, I will just tell the truth about it—so there!"
Florry seemed to breathe more freely after coming to this conclusion. She rose and went to the place where she had hidden the red plant. It was gone!
[CHAPTER II.]
RESTITUTION.
WHEN Florry saw that the plant was gone, she could hardly believe her eyes. She searched all through the lilac-bushes, thinking she might have forgotten the place where she had hidden it. But no; there was the mark the pot had made on the damp ground, close to the fence. Some passer-by in the street had seen it, and carried it off bodily. There was no doubt of that.
Florry stood looking at the place where the plant had been, with a feeling of dumb despair. What should she do now?
"Come in, Florry, my dear," called her mother, from the door. "The dew is falling heavily, and you will take cold. Don't you think you had better go to bed, directly?"
"Yes, please, mother," answered Florry.
She kissed her mother and father good-night, and went up-stairs to her own pretty little room. It was small and plainly furnished; but there was a pretty paper on the walls, and a buff curtain edged with blue over the one large window, which made quite a deep recess at one side of the room; and under the curtain stood Florry's great treasure—a pretty green and gold flower-pot, containing a very fine fuchsia of rather an uncommon variety—a white one with a full double purple centre, and long stamens. There was a toilet-table, covered like the curtains, a bureau, and a convenient writing-desk, over which hung a beautiful chromo which Emma Hausen had given her on her last birthday.