Mrs. Crump earned what she could get by selling flowers in the streets. She thought she could not turn poor Fé to better account than by making him sell them too, so she arranged half her bunches in Fé's basket, and tied it round his neck. Then she took him with her, and while she went round to the houses Fé stood in the principal streets, and offered his flowers to the passers-by.
Old Mrs. Crump soon made the discovery that "the heir" sold many more than she did during the day, but such was her vanity that she could not at first bring herself to believe that people preferred to buy of the pale-faced cripple boy than of her, with her jet black wig and creaking voice. When she found it was really the case, she was very angry. But besides being a very jealous old woman, she was naturally avaricious in the extreme, and she kept all Fé's earnings, and only gave him very scanty food in return.
She did not care to give up "seeing after him for a bit," yet she allowed a strong dislike to grow up against the boy in her own old cross heart.
One day, as Fé stood by the side of the street, with his basket hanging from his neck, and a bit of sunlight shining straight into his eyes, he felt some one touch his arm, and when he turned his head, he saw a young lady leaning towards him. She had long shining hair and blue eyes, there were dimples and bright pink on her cheeks; she slipped sixpence into his hand, whispering something about keeping it quite for himself, and then passed on, walking very quickly.
When Fé looked up to thank her, he saw only the flowing shining hair under a round black hat in the distance. Fé thought about the money for a long time: it was the first gift he had ever received, and he wondered if he might really keep it for himself. He thought how often, when he was so hot and thirsty, he might buy a little milk, and it seemed refreshing only to think of it. Then he remembered that Mrs. Crump took all the pence he earned, and he felt sure that she disliked him very much, and would take away his sixpence the moment she saw it. So at last he twisted it in a leaf out of his basket, and pushed it through a hole into the lining of his cap, for safety.
When he went back with Mrs. Crump in the evening, and she asked him for his earnings, that little sixpence in his cap felt like a stone, seeming to weigh him down to the ground; and when he went to the corner where he slept, he lay down on his little ragged bed, cold and miserable; and though he was tired out, he could not sleep for thinking of his great wickedness in concealing the sixpence.