"All a-blowing! all a-growing!" Saw you that poor woman turn round at the well-known sound? Had you been nearer you might have heard the low sigh she heaved. See, she has purchased with her last halfpenny a bunch of bluebells and primroses, and these she will place in water on her window-sill; and, while her face rests upon her hand, she will see miles beyond the little back yard, with its water-butt and cinder-heap, which her window overlooks, even as far off as the home of her childhood. The little cottage beside the wide open common, which was yellow with gorse and broom in summer, and purple with heath-bells in autumn, will again rise before her. In fancy she will hear the bees murmur as they went to and fro from her father's garden--will see the beds of flowers which she called her own; the old apple-tree, robed in white and crimson blossoms; hear the very chirp of the sparrows that built in the thatched roof, under which the honeysuckle climbed. She will again picture the rustic stile--the walk along the green lane, when the hedges were white with May, when his arm was placed gently around her waist, who is now working in chains in some penal settlement. He, who was so good and so kind to her, until he was allured to London, where he met with evil companions, and first starved, then, stupified with gin, went forth in the stilly dark night, and returned home a housebreaker. See! her eyes are closed--she has fallen asleep in her broken chair; a tear still lingers in her eyelashes, and a faint sad smile rests on her wan lips--for she fancies that she again hears the village-bells ringing, and that she is walking between those rows of graves, beneath the avenue of elms, with her bible and prayer-book in her hand, and about to enter the humble pew in which her father and mother (long since dead) knelt beside her in prayer. She awakes with a sigh; the sunshine falls on the chimney-pot opposite. She hears the drunken dustman, who lives beneath her, again quarrelling with his wife; the cry of "Beer!" in the street, then the smell from the sewer ascends; and, bringing in her flowers, she closes the window, and sits down to earn one-halfpenny per hour at the needlework supplied to her by that heart of nether millstone, the Great Nebuchadnezzar, through whose fiery furnace so many are compelled to pass, and in which such numbers perish, as they yield to his stern decree, because they know no other way by which they can obtain bread; garments made beneath burning sighs and scalding tears, that seem hot enough to blister the backs of those who wear them. God help thee, poor woman! thou canst not see it, although we can; there is an angel's face shining through every tear thou hast shed over those flowers, and looking upon thee with mild and pitying eyes.