"It came hard on me, you see, ma'am, when my poor master died. We were out of the country, and come up here for work, and very good work he got till the accident that laid him up for six weeks. Out-patient of the hospital he was, and they were very kind to him; and though he never took regularly to his bed, he seemed to dwindle away, and he was took. Don't think me hard-hearted because I don't cry about it, ma'am; I've cried till the tears seem as if they would not come any more, and what one has to do for a bit of bread is so trying at times that one has no time to be fretting. "You see, children are so thoughtless, and yet you can't wonder at it-- but as long as they have their meal's victuals that's all they think about. But then they're very young, you see, and don't know any better. That big one's seven, and she minds the two others while I go out, and I always manage not to be gone more than three hours at a time, though it hinders me a good deal from taking longer beats, for you see I'm out now-a-days in this pleasant spring weather with flowers. I'd do needlework, so as to be at home with them, but, oh! it's heart-breaking work. It was hard enough, I dare say, before there were sewing machines, but it's dreadful now, and you may work day and night almost to live. Just fancy being paid so many farthings for making a garment that has taken hours, while the poor children have been fretful and miserably cooped up in this one room--half-a-crown a week I pay for it, because it's one of the most decent, and I like being up at the top of the house, here, for one seems to get a little more fresh air, even if it's smoky. The poor bairns didn't seem to breathe down below there, and grew more white and pasty-looking every day till I got them up here. "I'm not particular what I sell as long as it is in season and people will buy. But it's no matter what one takes to, there's scores about selling the very same thing, and it's quite a fight sometimes for the next penny. Flowers always did, and I suppose always will, sell well, and I do the best I can with mine by sprinkling and keeping them fresh, and setting them out as tasty as I can, so as to catch people's eyes. There's very few people, no matter how hard they are, but what you can make the way to their hearts with a pretty, sweet-smelling blossom or two. I suppose as God made them, He's given them that power, and I've had your hard City men, who make money all the day long, stop in front of my basket with the lines softening out of their faces, and a brightness coming into their eyes that seems to stop for long enough; and if they buy, say, a bunch of violets or a few wallflowers, they'll stop about them, not picking and choosing and beating you down, but pretending to, so that they may hang about the basket, and smell them, and look at their simple beauty.