"My sister begged that I would call and see you, Miss Cardigan," Mrs. Sandford began, "about a poor family named Whittaker, that live somewhere in Ellen Street."
"I know them. Be seated," said our hostess. "I know them well. But I don't know this little lady."
"A little friend of mine, Miss Cardigan; she is at school with your neighbour opposite,--Miss Daisy Randolph."
"If nearness made neighbourhood," said Miss Cardigan, laughing, "Mme. Ricard and I would be neighbours; but I am afraid the rule of the Good Samaritan would put us far apart. Miss Daisy--do you like my cat; or would you like maybe to go in and look at my flowers?--yes?--Step in that way, dear; just go through that room, and on, straight through; you'll smell them before you come to them."
I gladly obeyed her, stepping in through the darkened middle room, where already the greeting of the distant flowers met me; then through a third smaller room, light and bright and full of fragrance, and to my surprise, lined with books. From this an open glass door let me into the greenhouse and into the presence of the beauties I had so often looked up to from the street. I lost myself then. Geraniums breathed over me; roses smiled at me; a daphne at one end of the room filled the whole place with its fragrance. Amaryllis bulbs were magnificent; fuchsias dropped with elegance; jonquils were shy and dainty; violets were good; hyacinths were delicious; tulips were splendid. Over and behind all these and others, were wonderful ferns, and heaths most delicate in their simplicity, and myrtles most beautiful with their shining dark foliage and starry white blossoms. I lost myself at first, and wandered past all these new and old friends in a dream; then I waked up to an intense feeling of homesickness. I had not been in such a greenhouse in a long time; the geraniums and roses and myrtles summoned me back to the years when I was a little happy thing at Melbourne House--or summoned the images of that time back to me. Father and mother and home--the delights and freedoms of those days--the carelessness, and the care--the blessed joys of that time before I knew Miss Pinshon, or school, and before I was perplexed with the sorrows and the wants of the world, and before I was alone--above all, when papa and mamma and I were _at home_. The geraniums and the roses set me back there so sharply that I felt it all. I had lost myself at first going into the greenhouse; and now I had quite lost sight of everything else, and stood gazing at the faces of the flowers with some tears on my own, and, I suppose, a good deal of revelation of my feeling; for I was unutterably startled by the touch of two hands upon my shoulders and a soft whisper in my ear, "What is it, my bairn?"