Daisy's Flowers.


DAISY had nothing but flowers in her little plot, and it bloomed all summer long with a succession of gay or fragrant posies. She was very fond of her garden, and delved away in it at all hours, watching over her roses, pansies, sweet-peas, and mignonette, as faithfully and tenderly as she did over her dolls or her friends. Little nosegays were sent into town on all occasions, and certain vases about the house were her especial care. She had all sorts of pretty fancies about her flowers, and loved to tell the children the story of the pansy, and show them how the step-mother-leaf sat up in her green chair in purple and gold; how the two own children, in gay yellow had each its little seat, while the step-children, in dull colors, both sat on one small stool, and the poor little father, in his red night-cap, was kept out of sight in the middle of the flower, that a monk's dark face looked out of the monk's-hood larkspur, that the flowers of the canary-vine were so like plainty birds fluttering their yellow wings, had one almost expected to see them fly away, and the snapdragons that went off like little pistol shots when you cracked them.

Splendid dollies did she make out of scarlet and white poppies, with ruffled robes tied round the waist with grass-blade sashes, and astonishing hats of coriopsis on their green heads. Pea-pod boats, with rose-leaf ails, received these flower-people, and floated them about a placid pool in the most charming style; for finding that there were no elves, Daisy made her own, and loved the fanciful little friends who played their arts in her summer life.





Miss Alcott