Bella's heart beat fast and furious when she heard that her father approved of the scheme, and when the children were told about it they all flew into a state of wild excitement. Of course they all wanted to be market-gardeners at once. "Why can't we all go shares in a stall in Norton Market?" cried Tom. "Bella can sell flowers and herbs, and me vegetables, and Charlie fruit, and Margery----" "Fairy roses," said Margery eagerly. She always called her flowers that had come so mysteriously 'fairy flowers.' "I was in Norton Market-house once," went on Tom, "and oh, it's a fine place!" Norton, their nearest and largest market-town, was five miles off, and as there was no railway to it, and they had no cart to take them, a visit to the town was one of the rarest treats they knew. When the first excitement had worn off, and Aunt Emma had been talked to and won over, and all that remained to be done was for their father to go to Norton and look out for a florist, matters seemed to go no further. He was at work on every day of the week except Saturday afternoons, and then there was always so much to be done at home he never seemed able to spare the time. Five miles to Norton and five miles back was a long distance to cover, with no other means of covering it than one's own two feet, or a chance 'lift'; and he kept on putting the matter off. "All my sweet-peas are passing," sighed Bella, when another Saturday had come and gone, and her father had not again spoken of going to Norton. "Tom, I've a good mind to go myself next Saturday, and take some flowers, and try to sell them. Will you come with me? Do you think you could walk so far?" Tom was indignant at this reflection on his manliness. "Walk it! I should rather think so! I can if you can, anyhow!" "It's a good long way," said Bella reflectively; "p'raps we could get a lift home. I wonder if Aunt Emma will let us go? Oh, Tom, I wish she would. I shall hate it at first, but it does seem a pity to waste all my flowers, and I do want to earn some money to buy a hotbed and some more seeds; there's ever so many kinds I want to get." To their great surprise, Aunt Emma agreed quite willingly to the scheme as soon as she was told of it. She saw nothing to object to in it, she said, and it never entered her head to think that the walk might be too long for either of them. "If Saturday turns out wet or rough, you needn't go," she said cheerfully. "I should have to if I'd got customers waiting," thought Bella; but she did not argue the point; she was thankful to have won the permission she wanted, and too fearful of losing it, to run any risks.