Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 4.djvu/213



LEASE, ma'am, will you give me one of them red tulips?"

The eager voice woke Helen from her reverie, and, looking up, she saw a little colored girl holding on to the iron railing with one hand, while the other pointed to a bed of splendid red and yellow tulips waving in the sunshine.

"I can't give you one, child, for they don't belong to me," answered Helen, arrested by the wistful face, over which her words brought a shadow of disappointment.

"I thought maybe you lived in this house, or knew the folks, and I do want one of them flowers dreadful bad," said the girl, regarding the gay tulips with a look of intense desire.

"I wish I could give you one, but it would be stealing, you know. Perhaps if you go and ask, the owner may let you have one, there are so many."

And having offered all the consolation in her