iding which of all that glorious collection of penny packets should be
theirs. Such poppies! such lupins! nasturtiums of such glorious colours
were pictured on each.

"I want them all!" replied Debby. "Wouldn't the garden look lovely, and
wouldn't Faith be excited!"

"Why, you'd have a flower show all on your own, Miss Debby," laughed Miss
Babbs, "and all for five shillings. I don't call it dear, do you?"

"Five shillings!" gasped Debby, "could I have all those for five
shillings? I've got ten in the bank----"

"Best keep it there," advised Miss Babbs, sagely. She was rather alarmed
by the spirit she had roused. "You never know what may 'appen."

Tom pulled Debby's apron. "Don't be silly," he said in her ear, "the
flowers would all be gone by Christmas, and you know we are saving for
a----" he ended his sentence by a regular fusilade of mysterious nods and
winks.

"Donkey!" ejaculated Debby, innocently completing his sentence for him.
"So we are. I had forgotten. I'll take one packet, please, Miss Babbs;
and I'd like lupins, please, they are _so_ beautiful."

"And I'll have mignonette, please, 'cause mother loves it, and Faith too.
Won't they be glad when it comes up! Do you think mother will be able to
smell it from her room?"

"More than likely," said Miss Babbs, encouragingly. "It's wonderful
strong when it's a good sort like this."

In the box where all the packets of seeds lay shuffled together, some
stray seeds rolled about loose, as though looking for nice soft earth in
which to bury themselves.

"Now these seeds must have come from somewhere," cried Miss Babbs, when
she caught sight of them, "and somebody or other'll be 'cusing me of
giving short weight, and a pretty fine thing that'll be! I never knew
nothing so aggravating as what seeds is, they'll worm their way out of
anything. Here Master Tom," as she chased and captured some, "take 'em
home and plant 'em. Miss Debby, you 'old out your 'and too. I don't know
what they are, but they're sure to be something. Those two are
sunflowers, and that's a 'sturtium. I do know those, and there's a few
sweet peas."

"Oh!" gasped Debby, her face beaming. "Oh, Miss Babbs, how very kind you
are!" and she held up her beaming little face to kiss the prim but
tenderhearted woman who had been her lifelong friend. "Faith has made a
new flower bed," she explained, "she has made it all by herself, but she
hasn't very much in it yet. So we wanted t