he purchase of the potted plants and cut flowers which he sold
to them at a wonderfully reasonable rate. But what had the little
German to do with Jim and his peanut-stand? Allie soon enlightened us.

"Jim was going to have the stand on that corner," she said, "and he had
leave to do it; but mamma and aunt Emily said it would not do for Tony
and Matty to sit out of doors in the cold weather; it would kill Matty,
they said. And Jim was so disappointed, and he didn't know what to do;
and one day when sister Milly sent him to Johnny's, he told him about
it, and about Tony and Matty; and that lovely old Johnny,--Daisy and I
ask God to bless him every night when we've done our own people,--he
told Jim he could have a little corner of his store where it was all
glass, and the stand could be seen from the street; and then Matty
could sit there, and people would come in and buy her peanuts. Wasn't
it good in him? We love Johnny, if he does squint, and smell of
tobacco, and can't talk very plain."

"And then," said Daisy, taking up the tale in her turn, as Allie paused
for breath, "and then there wasn't room there for the roaster, 'cause
it's pretty squeezed up in Matty's corner, and in Johnny's store, too,
wif the stand there; so Johnny's wife, who lives just a little bit of a
way off, lets Tony have the roaster up in her room, and roast the
peanuts, and then he runs very quick wif 'em over to Matty, or, if it's
a nice, pleasant day, he has it put outside the door. But the smell of
the peanuts gets mixed up wif the smell of the flowers, and that isn't
so very nice."

"But Jim is making lots of money, he says," continued Allie; "'cause
most always when people come in to buy flowers, Johnny tells 'em they'd
better buy peanuts, too; and Jim printed a sign in German about peanuts
inside, and put the meaning in English beneath, and he says he thinks
he is doing a better business than if Matty sat outside. Norman and
Douglas buy lots, but," with a little sigh, "mother don't like Daisy
and me to eat peanuts. It would be a good way to do charity if she
would let us; but sometimes we buy some, and give them to the
servants."

Jim and his "peanut undertakin'," as Captain Yorke had called it, had,
in the press of other and greater interests, almost passed from my
mind, and I had made no inquiries about it lately; but, as visions of
numerous peanut-shells in the most unheard of places returned to my
recollection, I could not doubt the