of his hurrying the workmen, whom
she supposed had long since been ordered to make them, John said,
"Indeed, mum, it would be the ruin of the plants shutting put the
light; and they would all be rusted with the showerings I gives them
every day." And Miss Sydney smiled, and said no more.

The street was opened late in October, and, soon after, cold weather
began in real earnest. Down in that business part of the city it was
the strangest, sweetest surprise to come suddenly upon the long line of
blooming plants and tall green lily-leaves under a roof festooned with
roses and trailing vines. For the first two or three weeks, almost
everybody stopped, if only for a moment. Few of Miss Sydney's own
friends even had ever seen her greenhouse; for they were almost
invariably received in the drawing-room. Gentlemen stopped the thought
of business affairs, and went on down the street with a fresher,
happier feeling. And the tired shop-girls lingered longest. Many a
man and woman thought of some sick person to whom a little handful of
the green leaves and bright blossoms, with their coolness and
freshness, would bring so much happiness. And it was found, long
months afterward, that a young man had been turned back from a plan of
wicked mischief by the sight of a tall green geranium, like one that
bloomed in his mother's sitting-room way up in the country. He had not
thought, for a long time before, of the dear old woman who supposed her
son was turning his wits to good account in the city. But Miss Sydney
did not know how much he wished for a bit to put in his buttonhole when
she indignantly went back to the dining-room to wait until that
impertinent fellow stopped staring in.

II.

It was just about this time that Mrs. Marley made a change in her place
of business. She had sold candy round the corner in Jefferson Street
for a great many years; but she had suffered terribly from rheumatism
all the winter before. She was nicely sheltered from too much sun in
the summer; but the north winds of winter blew straight toward her; and
after much deliberation, and many fears and questioning as to the
propriety of such an act she had decided to find another stand. You or
I would think at first that it could make no possible difference where
she sat in the street with her goods; but in fact one has regular
customers in that business, as well as in the largest wholesale
enterprise. There was some uncertainty whether these