"Oh yes, ma'am, miss, I mean," stammered poor, shy Bella, and, to hide her blushing cheeks, she bent and lifted out some of her flowers that the ladies might see them better.
"How much a bunch are they?"
"Tuppence each the big ones, ma'am, and a penny the little ones," stammered Bella. She longed to give them to the lady, and ask her not to pay any money at all for them. "Some are all shades of one colour, and some are mixed."
"It is wonderful," she heard one lady say softly to the other. "I gave a shilling in London a day or two ago for a much smaller bunch than this."
"Where do you get such beautiful flowers?" she asked, turning again to Bella with her pleasant smile.
"I grow them myself, ma'am," said Bella, with shy pride.
"Do you really? Well, you must be a born gardener, I am sure, and you deserve to get on. Mary,"—turning to her companion again,—"I will have pink sweet-peas of different shades for the dinner-table to-night, and then that point will be settled and off my mind. Nothing could be prettier. Can you,"—to Bella—"give me six bunches of pink ones? At least four of pink, and two of white?"
Bella turned over her store eagerly, and found the number wanted.
"I must have some of your mignonette," said the other lady, "for the sake of the smell, and a bunch of those roses too. How much each are they?"
"Tuppence the roses, and a penny the mignonette, ma'am," said Bella.