"Strawberries!--strawberries!" Julia Warren turned pale, and looked around like a frightened bird, when this sweet cry first broke from her lips in the open street. Nobody seemed to hear--that was one comfort; so she hurried round a corner, and creeping into the shadow of a house, leaned, all in a tremor, against an iron railing, quite confident, for the moment, that she should never find courage to open her mouth again. But a little reflection gave her strength. Mrs. Gray had told her that the morning was her harvest hour. She could not stand there trembling beneath the weight of her basket. The fruity scent--the fragrant breath of the violets that floated up from it, seemed to reproach her. "Strawberries!--strawberries!" The sound rose from those red lips more cheerily now. There was ripeness in the very tones that put you in mind of the fruit itself. The cry was neither loud nor shrill, but somehow people were struck by it, and turned unconsciously to look upon the girl. This gave her fresh courage, for the glances were all kind, and as she became accustomed to her own voice, the novelty of her position began to lose its terror. A woman called to her from the area of a house, and purchased two baskets of the strawberries, without asking any reduction in the price. Poor child, how her heart leaped when the shilling was placed in her hand! How important the whole transaction seemed to her; yet with what indifference the woman paid for the strawberries, and turned to carry them into the basement. Julia looked through the railings and thanked this important customer. She could not help it; her little heart was full. A muttered reply that she was "welcome," came back; that was all. Notwithstanding the gruff answer, Julia took up her basket with a radiant face. "Strawberries!--strawberries!" Now the words came forth from red and smiling lips--nay, once or twice the little girl broke into a laugh, as she went along, for the bright shilling lay in the bottom of her basket. She wandered on unacquainted with the streets, but quite content; for though she found herself down among warehouses only, and in narrow, crowded streets, the gentlemen who hurried by would now and then turn for a bunch of violets, and she kept on bewildered, but happy as a bird.