went and came,
crowds of relations besieged the house, an air of gloom hung over the
bright garden.

The little kitchen-maid waited anxiously for news; and tears rolled
down her face as she heard the Church bell tolling for the death of
the great lady.

A grand funeral started from the white house on the hill. Carriages
containing relations, who tried vainly to twist their faces into an
expression of the grief they were supposed to be feeling.

Wreaths of the purest hot-house flowers covered the coffin--wreaths
for which the relations had given large sums of money; but not one
woven with sorrowful care by the hand of a real lover.

The sod was patted down, the dry-eyed mourners departed; and some
square yards of bare earth were all that now belonged to the great
lady.

When everyone had left, the little kitchen-maid crept from behind some
bushes, where she had been hiding.

Her face was tear-stained, and she carried in her hand two slender
white flowers.

They were the plants grown with such loving care in the old tin box on
the window-sill; and she laid them with a sigh amongst the rich
wreaths and crosses.

"Good-bye, dear mistress! I have nothing else to bring you," she
whispered; and never dreamed that her gift had been the most beautiful
of any--her simple love and tears.

DAME FOSSIE'S CHINA DOG.

Granny Pyetangle lived in a little thatched cottage, with a garden
full of sweet-smelling, old-fashioned flowers. It was one of a long
row of other thatched cottages that bordered the village street. At
one end of this was the Inn, with a beautiful sign-board that creaked
and swayed in the wind; at the other, Dame Fossie's shop, in which
brandy-balls, ginger-snaps, balls of string, tops, cheese, tallow
candles, and many other useful and entertaining things were neatly
disposed in a small latticed window.

All Granny Pyetangle's relations were dead; and she lived quite alone
with her little grandson 'Zekiel, who had been a mingled source of
pride and worry to her, ever since he left off long-clothes and took
to a short-waisted frock with a wide frill round the neck, that
required constant attention in the way of washing and ironing.

'Zekiel's favourite place to play in was Granny Pyetangle's cottage
doorway.

A board had been put up to prevent him rolling out on to the
cobblestone pavement; and this board though very irritating to
'Zekiel in many ways--as preventing him from straying down the ro