at the thought of trifling with her
infirmity. "Bad for business. If we all set to work as soon as we could
use our hands, it would be all over with the dolls' dressmakers.

"There's something in that," replied Miss Wren, "you have a sort of an
idea in your noddle sometimes!" Then, resting one arm upon the elbow of
her chair, resting her chin upon that hand, and looking vacantly before
her, she said in a changed tone: "Talking of ideas, my Lizzie, I wonder
how it happens that when I am working here all alone in the summer-time,
I smell flowers. This is not a flowery neighborhood. It's anything but
that. And yet as I sit at work, I smell miles of flowers; I smell
rose-leaves till I think I see the rose-leaves lying in heaps, bushels,
on the floor; I smell fallen leaves, till I put down my hand--so--and
expect to make them rustle; I smell the white and the pink May in the
hedges, and all sorts of flowers that I never was among. For I have seen
very few flowers indeed in my life."

"Pleasant fancies to have, Jenny dear!" said her friend with a glance
toward their visitor, as if she would have asked him whether they were
given the child in compensation for her losses.

"So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me. And the birds I hear! Oh!"
cried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking upward, "How
they sing!"

There was something in the face and action for the moment quite inspired
and beautiful. Then the chin dropped musingly upon the hand again.

"I dare say my birds sing better than other birds, and my flowers smell
better than other flowers. For when I was a little child," in a tone as
though it were ages ago, "the children that I used to see early in the
morning were very different from any others I ever saw. They were not
like me; they were not chilled, anxious, ragged, or beaten; they were
never in pain. They were not like the children of the neighbors; they
never made me tremble all over, by setting up shrill noises; and they
never mocked me. Such numbers of them too! All in white dresses, and
with something shining on the borders, and on their heads, that I have
never been able to imitate with my work, though I know it so well. They
used to come down in long, bright, slanting rows, and say all together,
'Who is this in pain! Who is this in pain!' When I told them who it was,
they answered, 'Come and play with us!' When I said 'I never play! I
can't play,' they swept about me and took me up, and made