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“Dear heart!” said Mrs. Marley, “now I am glad you had something hot for supper. I was turning over in my mind what we could cook up, for I feel real hollow. It’s a kind of chilly day.” And she sat down by the stove, while Polly hobbled to the table, with one hand to her ear to catch the first sound of the good news, and the other holding some baked potatoes in her apron. That hand was twisted with rheumatism, for the disease ran in the family. She was afraid every day that she should have to give up making the candy on the next; for it hurt her so to use it. She was continually being harrowed by the idea of its becoming quite useless, and that the candy might not be so good; and then what would become of them? Becky Marley was often troubled by the same thought. Yet they were almost always good-natured, poor old women; and, though Polly Sharpe’s pleasures and privileges were by far the fewest of anybody’s I ever knew, I think she was as glad in those days to know the dandelions were in bloom as if she could see them; and she got more good from the fragments of the Sunday-morning sermon that sister Becky brought home than many a listener did from the whole service.

The potatoes were done to a turn, Mrs. Marley shouted; and then Polly sat down close by her to hear the news.

“You know I have been worrying about the cold weather a-coming, and my rheumatics; and I was afeared to change my stand, on account of losing custom. Well, to-day it all come over me to once that I might move down a piece on Grant Place,–that new street that’s cut through to St. Mary. I’ve noticed for some time past that almost all my reg’lar customers turns down that way, so this morning I thought I’d step down that way too, and see if there was a chance. And after I gets into the street I sees people stopping and looking at something as they went along; and so I goes down to see; and it is one of them hothouses, full of plants a-growing like it was mid-summer. It belongs to the big Sydney house on the corner. There’s a good place to sit right at the corner of it, and I’m going to move over there to-morrow. I thought as how I wouldn’t leave Jefferson Street to-day, for it was too sudden. You see folks stops and looks at the plants, and there wasn’t any wind there to-day. There! I wish you could see them flowers.”

Sister Polly was very pleased, and, after the potatoes and bread were eaten, she brought on an apple pie that had been sent up by Mrs. Welch, the washerwoman who lived on the floor next but one below. She was going away for three or four days, having been offered good pay to do some cleaning in a new house, and her board besides, near her work. So you see that evening was quite a jubilee.

The next day Mrs. Marley’s wildest expectations were realized; for she was warm as toast the whole morning, and sold all her candy, and went home by two o’clock. That had never happened but once or twice before. “Why, I shouldn’t wonder if we could lay up considerable this winter,” said she to Polly.

Miss Sydney did not like the idea of the old candy-woman’s being there. Children came to buy of her, and the street seemed noisier than ever at times. Perhaps she might have to leave the house, after all. But one may get used to almost any thing; and as the days went by she was surprised to find that she was not half so much annoyed as at first; and one afternoon she found herself standing at one of the dining-room windows, and watching the people go by. I do not think she had shown so much interest as this in the world at large for many years. I think it must have been from noticing the pleasure her flowers gave the people who stopped to look at them that she began to think herself selfish, and to be aware how completely indifferent she had grown to any claims the world might have upon her. And one morning, when she heard somebody say, “Why, it’s like a glimpse into the tropics! Oh! I wish I could have such a conservatory!” She thought, “Here I have kept this all to myself for all these years, when so many others might have enjoyed it too!” But then the old feeling of independence came over her. The greenhouse was out of people’s way; she surely couldn’t have let people in whom she didn’t know; however, she was glad, now that the street was cut, that some one had more pleasure, if she had not. After all it was a satisfaction to our friend; and from this time the seeds of kindness and charity and helpfulness began to show themselves above the ground in the almost empty garden of her heart. I will tell you how they grew and blossomed; and as strangers came to see her real flowers, and to look in at the conservatory windows from the cold city street, instead of winter to see a bit of imprisoned summer, so friend after friend came to find there was another garden in her own heart, and Miss Sydney learned the blessedness there is in loving and giving and helping.