Soap-Bubble Stories Part 3

"I'm sure I can manage it," said Marianne, and fell asleep again while she was arranging the words in which she should make the suggestion to Aunt Olga.

The next day Marianne awoke betimes, and immediately inspected the contents of her stocking.

There, stuffed clumsily inside it, was everything she had been wis.h.i.+ng for during the year, and more too!

"Do come and look at my things!" cried Marianne to the Chintz Imp, but he remained rigidly against his s.h.i.+ny spotted background and refused to move, though Marianne thought she saw a twinkle in his eye, which showed he was not quite so impa.s.sive as he appeared to be.

"I'll try and get him put into the Servants' Hall as soon as possible," she thought. "It makes me quite nervous to think he may pounce upon me any minute. Besides, one must keep one's promises! How extraordinary it is he can make himself so perfectly flat."

As soon as she was dressed she ran down to the dining room.

"Dear Aunt Olga, I've got such quant.i.ties of things to show you!" she cried, "and as you said I might choose, may I please have new chintz to my bed, and no pattern on it, so that it can't come out and be Imps--I mean, have funny shapes on it. And may my old curtains be put in the Servants' Hall? He says it will be more cheerful for him, and though, of course, he's been very kind to me, I think I would rather he went somewhere else. Besides, it _is_ dull for him up there, all by himself--I mean, it would be dull for _any_ kind of chintz."

"I do think Santa Klaus has got into your head, Marianne!" said Aunt Olga, laughing; but she promised to buy the new curtains.

In course of time they arrived--the palest blue, with little harmless frillings to them; and the old chintz was carried off to the Servants'

Hall to make a box cover.

There it still hangs, and if you stoop down and examine it closely, you will see the Chintz Imp looking more lively than ever, with his green hat on one side, and a twinkling red eye on the watch for any sort of amus.e.m.e.nt.

Marianne often goes to see him, but, rather to her disappointment, he looks the other way, and appears not to recognize her.

"Perhaps it's just as well," she says to herself, "for he seems very happy, and if the servants knew he was here I believe they would turn him out immediately."

HEARTSEASE.

The three-cornered sc.r.a.p of garden by the elm tree, with a border of stones, and a neat trodden path down the middle, belonged to little Bethea.

It grew things in a most wonderful way. Stocks and marigolds, primroses and lupines, Canterbury bells and lavender; all came out at their different seasons, and all flourished--for Bethea watered and tended them so faithfully that they loved her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "BETHEA WATERED AND TENDED THEM SO FAITHFULLY THAT THEY LOVED HER."]

On a soft spring day Bethea stood by her garden with scissors and basket, snipping away at the brightest and best of her children; carefully, so that she might not hurt them, and with judgment, so that they might bloom again when they wished to.

"Do you know where you're going?" she said--"To the Hospital.

Grandmamma's going to take me, and you're being gathered to cheer up the sick people there--aren't you pleased?" And the flowers nodded.

"I don't suppose I shall be picked. I don't think I'm good enough!"

whispered a very small purple pansy, who had only recently been planted, to a beetle who happened to be crawling by. "I should like to go with the others, though I don't suppose it would cheer anyone to see me, I'm not light enough!"

"Don't be too sure," said the beetle solidly. "You've a nice velvety softness about you, and then you have the best name of them all. What sick person wouldn't like to have Heartsease?"

"I think I've got enough now," said Bethea, as she laid the last primula in her basket.

"Oh, do take me!" cried the pansy, touching her little brown shoe with one of its leaves to attract her attention, "I do want to help!" and Bethea stooped down, she scarcely knew why, gathered it, and put it with the rest of her flowers.

The drive to the Hospital was along a dusty country road, and the flowers under their paper covering, gasped for breath.

As soon as they arrived, Bethea, following her grandmother, carried them up to the room where children were lying in the little white beds, and gave them to the woman who was in charge of it.

"Please would you mind putting them in water for the children," she said in her soft voice, and the woman smiled and nodded.

Bethea took a few of the flowers out, and went round to the different beds offering one or two, shyly, until she came to a thin pale boy--a new patient, whom she had never seen before.

"He's only been here a fortnight," said the woman in a whisper, "and we can't get him to take any interest in anything--I don't know what we're going to do with him!"

"Is he very ill?" asked Bethea, wistfully.

"No, not so bad as some. A crooked leg, that will get well in time if only we can wake him up a little."

"I'm so sorry I have nothing but this flower left," said Bethea, as she stooped over the boy's curly head, and gave him the small purple pansy.

"Oh, I wish I was more beautiful!" sighed the little dark flower.

"_Now_ would be an opportunity to do some good in the world!"

The boy turned wearily, but his face lighted up as he saw the pansy.

His eyes brightened and he seized it eagerly.

"Heartsease! Oh, it's like home. We've lots of that growing in our garden. I always had some on Sundays!" he cried. "Do let me keep it.

It seems just a bit of home--a bit of home--a bit of home."

He murmured it over and over again, as if there was rest and happiness in the very sound of it.

"I'll keep fresh as long as ever I can," said the pansy, "It's the least I can do for him, poor fellow!"

"At all events the flowers are all out of my own garden," said Bethea, sitting down by the white bed, and then she talked away so gently that the boy's weary face smoothed out, and he went to sleep.

In a few days' time Bethea begged her grandmother to let her go again to the hospital, and she persuaded the gardener to give her a beautiful bunch of pansies to take to the sick boy.

As she entered the room, she saw that the little purple pansy was standing in a tumbler of water, on a chair by the boy's bed.

Its head hung over on one side, but it looked quite fresh and healthy.

"Hasn't it lasted well?" said the boy, happily. He looked much better and spoke in a loud, cheerful voice. "It's been talking to me about all sorts of things! the country, and gardens, and springtime, and being out and about in the fresh air and suns.h.i.+ne!"

"Well, I certainly have tried to make myself as pleasant as possible,"

said the pansy, but it spoke so low that n.o.body heard it except the boy whose ears were sharpened by illness.

"I've brought you some more," said Bethea, holding out her bouquet, "shall I put them in the tumbler with the little one?"

"Oh, no!" cried the boy anxiously, "I think if you don't mind I'd rather you gave those to some of the other children. I can't like any fine new flowers as well as that little fellow. I feel as if he had made me well again!"

The pansy expanded with pride, and a tear of grat.i.tude rolled out of its eye, and fell with a splash on the cane chair-seat.

"I'm going to have it dried in my old pocket book, when it's really withered," continued the boy, "and then I shall be able to look at it always."