"Five shillings!" gasped Debby, "could I have all those for five shillings? I've got ten in the bank——"
"Best keep it there," advised Miss Babbs, sagely. She was rather alarmed by the spirit she had roused. "You never know what may 'appen."
Tom pulled Debby's apron. "Don't be silly," he said in her ear, "the flowers would all be gone by Christmas, and you know we are saving for a——" he ended his sentence by a regular fusilade of mysterious nods and winks.
"Donkey!" ejaculated Debby, innocently completing his sentence for him. "So we are. I had forgotten. I'll take one packet, please, Miss Babbs; and I'd like lupins, please, they are so beautiful."
"And I'll have mignonette, please, 'cause mother loves it, and Faith too. Won't they be glad when it comes up! Do you think mother will be able to smell it from her room?"
"More than likely," said Miss Babbs, encouragingly. "It's wonderful strong when it's a good sort like this."
In the box where all the packets of seeds lay shuffled together, some stray seeds rolled about loose, as though looking for nice soft earth in which to bury themselves.
"Now these seeds must have come from somewhere," cried Miss Babbs, when she caught sight of them, "and somebody or other'll be 'cusing me of giving short weight, and a pretty fine thing that'll be! I never knew nothing so aggravating as what seeds is, they'll worm their way out of anything. Here Master Tom," as she chased and captured some, "take 'em home and plant 'em. Miss Debby, you 'old out your 'and too. I don't know what they are, but they're sure to be something. Those two are sunflowers, and that's a 'sturtium. I do know those, and there's a few sweet peas."
"Oh!" gasped Debby, her face beaming. "Oh, Miss Babbs, how very kind you are!" and she held up her beaming little face to kiss the prim but tenderhearted woman who had been her lifelong friend. "Faith has made a new flower bed," she explained, "she has made it all by herself, but she hasn't very much in it yet. So we wanted to put some seeds in it without her knowing anything about it, so's she would have a s'prise. Now she'll have lots of s'prises. She'll think it's the piskies, won't she?"
"Two-legged piskies, I guess," laughed Miss Babbs, knowingly, and the children were too polite to remind her that piskies never had more. "When your peas come up, Miss Deborah, you come along to me, and I will give you some fine little sticks for them."