y face,
Your straggling bravery;
Than many a stately garden bloom
You're dearer far to me.

For you it needs no sheltered nook,
No well-kept flower-bed;
By cottage porch, by roadside ditch,
You raise your honest head.

The small hedge-sparrow knows you well,
The blackbird is your friend;
With clustering bees and butterflies
Your pink-fringed blossoms bend.

O Robin, ragged Robin,
The dearest flower that grows,
Why don't you patch your tattered cloak?
Why don't you mend your hose?

Would you not like to prank it there
Within the border bright,
Among the roses and the pinks,
A courtly dame's delight?

"Ah no!" says jolly Robin,
"'T would never do for me;
The friend of bird and butterfly,
Like them I must be free.

"The garden is for stately folk,
The lily and the rose;
They'd scorn my coat of ragged pink,
Would flout my broken hose.

"Then let me bloom in wayside ditch,
And by the cottage door,
The sweetheart of the country child,
The flower of the poor."

CHAPTER IX.

BROKEN FLOWERS.

Miss Wealthy was sitting on the back piazza, crocheting a tidy. The
stitch was a new one, and quite complicated, and her whole mind was bent
upon it. "One, two, purl, chain, slip; one, two, purl"--when suddenly
descended upon her a whirlwind, a vision of sparkling eyes and
"tempestuous petticoat," crying, "_Please_, Cousin Wealthy, may I go
with Jeremiah? The wagon is all ready. Mayn't I go? Oh, _please_ say
'yes'!"

Miss Wealthy started so violently that the crochet-hook fell from her
hands. "My _dear_ Hilda!" she said plaintively, "you quite take my
breath away. I--really, my dear, I don't know what to say. Where do you
want to go?"

"With Jeremiah, to Fairtown, with the flowers--to see the children!"
cried Hildegarde, still too much out of breath to speak connectedly, but
dropping on one knee beside the old lady, and stroking her soft hand
apologetically. "He says he will take care of me; and Rose has a long
letter to write, and I shall be back in time for dinner. Dear, nice,
pretty, sweet, bewitching Cousin Wealthy, may I go?"

Miss Wealthy was still bewildered. "Why, my dear," she said
hesitatingly. "Yes--you may go, certainl