The Little Missis

In the morning the room looked as cheerless as it did the night before, and Phebe's heart seemed to shrink as she noticed that the window looked into a yard, surrounded with high walls, and that nothing was growing in it but grass and dandelions. How different from the outlook over the well-kept garden at home! "But I'll soon make it look different," said the hopeful Phebe to herself.

The only bright spot in the room was a bunch of beautiful pansies lying on the table; the wallflowers had been taken upstairs. As Phebe picked them up she noticed a slip of paper pushed beneath the string with which they were tied, and on it was written:

"From Neighbour Bessie. I do hope you will be my friend."

"Ah, that must be Mrs. Marchant's daughter, next door," thought Phebe, "I have heard Ralph speak of her. Of course we shall be friends. What beautiful flowers! Pansies--see, they mean 'heart's ease.' Did Bessie think--but of course she did not. She would not know their meaning."