, lazy-busy hum of bees and
butterflies and all sorts of living creatures, that you never hear
except in a real old-fashioned garden where there are lots of clove
pinks and sweet williams and roses, roses especially, great, big cabbage
roses, and dear little pink climbing roses, the kind that peep in at a
cottage window to bid you "good morning." Oh, how very sweet those
old-fashioned flowers are--though "rose fanciers" and all the clever
gardeners we have now-a-days wouldn't give anything for them! _I_ think
them the sweetest of all. Don't you, children? Or is it only when one
begins to grow old-fashioned oneself and to care more for things that
used to be than things that are now, that one gets to prize these old
friends so?

I am wandering away from Floss and Carrots waiting for nurse in the
cottage garden; you must forgive me, boys and girls--when people begin
to grow old they get in the habit of telling stories in a rambling way,
but I don't find children so hard upon this tiresome habit as big people
sometimes are. And it all comes back to me so--even the old
washerwoman's cottage I can see so plainly, and the dear straggly little
garden!

For you see, children, I am telling you the history of a _real_ little
boy and girl, not fancy children, and that is why, though there is
nothing very wonderful about Floss and Carrots, I hope the story of
their little pleasures and sorrows and simple lives may be interesting
to you.

But I must finish about the visit to the washerwoman in another chapter.
I have made this one rather too long already.

CHAPTER IV.

THE LOST HALF-SOVEREIGN.

"Children should not leave about
Anything that's small and bright;
Lest the fairies spy it out,
And fly off with it at night."

_Poems written for a child._

There was no buzzy sound in Mrs. White's garden this afternoon. It was
far too early in the year for that, indeed it was beginning to feel
quite chilly and cold, as the afternoons often do of fine days in early
spring, and by the time Floss and Carrots had eaten their cake, and
examined all the rose bushes to see if they could find any buds, and
wished it were summer, so that there would be some strawberries hiding
under the glossy green leaves, they began to wonder why nurse was so
long--and to feel rather cold and tired of waiting.

"Just run to the door, Carrots, dear," said Floss, "and peep in to see
if nurse is coming."