Page:The New-Year's Bargain (1884).djvu/81

 story, "was a good way off in the woods, a hidden nook, just such as I love. The trees stood thickly about it, but they opened and left a spot where the sunshine could come in and warm the earth. There for many days I worked with busy fingers, clearing away dead leaves and roots, and covering the ground with a moss carpet thick and soft, into which tiny coral points were stuck to please baby eyes. In the very middle I set a snow-white mushroom, glistening and white as an ivory umbrella; and all about it I planted and wreathed the sweetest flower I know,—a flower whose cups are as pink as a rose, and hold a fragrance so rare, that if a perfumer could collect it in his bottles it would be worth its weight in gold. When all was done, it was the daintiest little garden ever seen; and now it only remained to entice the babies thither to enjoy it.

"This was easy. I selected a warm day, that they might not catch cold; and, as they sat at the door of the tent, I crept up and sat beside them.