“What then, my child?”
“Why—how then can my domino-box be changed into a geranium and a blue-and-white flower-pot?”
“My dear,” said my father, leaning his hand on my shoulder, “every body who is in earnest to be good, carries two fairies about with him—one here,” and he touched my heart; “and one here,” and he touched my forehead.
“I don’t understand, papa.”
“I can wait till you do, Pisistratus! What a name!”
My father stopped at a nursery gardener’s, and, after looking over the flowers, paused before a large double geranium. “Ah, this is finer than that which your mamma was so fond of. What is the cost, sir?”
“Only 7s. 6d.,” said the gardener.
My father buttoned up his pocket.
“I can’t afford it to-day,” said he gently, and we walked out.
On entering the town, we stopped again at a china-warehouse. “Have you a flower-pot like that I bought some months ago? Ah, here is one, marked 3s. 6d. Yes, that is the price. Well, when your mamma’s birth-day comes again, we must buy her another. That is some months to wait. And we can wait, Master Sisty. For truth, that blooms all the year round, is better than a poor geranium; and a word that is never broken, is better than a piece of delf.”