Matilda groaned. “My hopes are quite dying away; half-a-crown!--I don’t think I shall be able to earn sixpence even;--but it is sunny and bright now, we might go into the garden, and you could gather some of the flowers which do best, and show me how you lay them on the paper--I think I have seen you working away with a long pin; but if I were to take a pin in my hand, I should be sure to run it through the flowers if they would not lie the right way, for I should be so provoked. “Well, that is why I say that the chief thing is patience; you would quite spoil the flower if you even scratched it with the pin. I take the pin to help me to guide the leaves to lie right; for sometimes when I lay down the branch on the paper, all the leaves get crowded together, and I have to separate them, and sometimes to pluck off one or two.” “It is most horribly difficult, I can see that; however, let us go into the garden; perhaps, if I see you do it, I might still try.” “But, Matilda, it won’t do to gather flowers to dry to-day; you forget that it rained in the night, and that this morning even there was a slight shower.” Matilda shrugged her shoulders. “What a business! better give it up altogether, and especially if I am to bear in mind every time it rains. When the rain is over, I am too glad to forget it,--who ever thinks of rain when the sun is shining? not _I_--I always feel sure it is never to rain again; and so all my little plans for goodness must be given up, and I must just go on buying bunns till I am older, and then perhaps I shall not be so hungry, and shall not care for them so much.” Leila smiled but shook her head. “Now don’t talk in that way, Matilda, for you know very well it is not right, and you do not mean to go on spending all your money on bunns; you could not be happy if you did; you only say so to make me laugh; but come, let us go into the garden, and I can show you what flowers do best for drying, and then when it is fine we can gather them, and I will help you to put them in paper. I am sure _you_ also could make money by it.” “Oh, you are a darling!” Matilda exclaimed; “and again my hopes are rising, _rising_--sixpence--a shilling--half-a-crown. Oh! there will be no counting the money I shall make. I shall have quite too much for the poor, and be able to treat you all with bunns into the bargain; now that is what I call generous.” They found Mrs. Roberts and Alfred in the garden, Alfred flying at full speed as if in pursuit of something. “Don’t stop me, Matilda, don’t. Now it is going to settle on that rosebush--no, it is not--yes, it is hovering--now don’t move, don’t make a noise; now I have him;”--and he held up a large dragon-fly between his fingers. Matilda screamed. “Oh! let him go, Alfred--do let him go--he will sting you; only see how he is putting out that long frightful sting. I see his sting quite plain.”