"Please ma'am, will you give me one of them red tulips?"

The eager voice woke Helen from her reverie, and, looking up, she saw a little colored girl holding on to the iron railing with one hand, while the other pointed to a bed of splendid red and yellow tulips waving in the sunshine.

"I can't give you one, child, for they don't belong to me," answered Helen, arrested by the wistful face, over which her words brought a shadow of disappointment.

"I thought maybe you lived in this house, or knew the folks, and I do want one of them flowers dreadful bad," said the girl, regarding the gay tulips with a look of intense desire.

"I wish I could give you one, but it would be stealing, you know. Perhaps if you go and ask, the owner may let you have one, there are so many."

And having offered all the consolation in her power, Helen went on, busy with a certain disappointment of her own, which just then weighed very heavily on her girlish heart.

Half an hour later, as she came down the street on the opposite side, she saw the same girl sitting on a door-step, still gazing at the tulips with hopeless admiration.

The child looked up as she approached, and recognizing the pretty young lady who had spoken kindly to her, smiled and nodded so confidingly, that Helen could not resist stopping to say,—

"Did you ask over there?"

"Yes, ma'am, but the girl said, 'No,' and told me to clear out; so I come over here to set and look at the pretties, since I can't have none," she answered, with a patient sigh.

"You shall have some!" cried Helen, remembering how easily she could gratify the innocent longing of the poor child, and feeling a curious sympathy with all disappointed people. "Come with me, dear; there is a flower shop round the corner, and you shall have a posy of some sort."

Such wonder, gratitude and delight shone in Betty's face, that Helen felt rejoiced for her small kindness. As they walked, she questioned her about herself, and quite won her heart by the friendly interest expressed in Betty's mother, Betty's kitten, and Betty's affairs generally.

When they came to the flower shop little Bet felt as if she had got into a fairy tale; and when Helen gave her a pot with a blue hyacinth and a rosy tulip blooming prettily together, she felt as if a lovely fairy had granted all her wishes in the good old way.

"It's just splendid! and I don't know how to thank you, miss. But mother takes in washing, and she'll love to do yours, and plait the ruffles elegant—'cause you done this for me!" cried Betty, embracing the flower-pot with one hand, and squeezing Miss Helen's with the other.

Helen promised to come and see her new friend, and when they parted, kept turning round to watch the little figure trotting up the hill, often pausing to turn, and show her a beaming black face, all smiles and delight, as Betty threw her kisses and hugged the dear red tulip like a treasure of great price.

When she vanished, Helen said to herself, with a smile and a sigh,—

"There, I feel better for that little job; and it is a comfort to know that some one has got what she wants, though it is not I."

Some weeks later, when Helen was preparing to go into the country for the summer, and wanted certain delicate muslins done up, she remembered what Betty had said about her mother, and had a fancy to see how the child and her flowers prospered.

She found them in a small, poor room, hot and close, and full of wash-tubs and flat-irons. The mother was busy at her work, and Betty sat by the one window, listlessly picking out ruffles.

When she saw the face at the door, she jumped up and clapped her hands, crying, delightedly, "O mammy, it's my lady; my dear, pretty lady truly come at last!"

Such a welcome made friends of the three at once, and Mrs. Simms gladly undertook the work Helen offered.

"And how are the posies?" asked the young lady, as she rose to go.

"Only leaves now, miss; but I take real good care of 'em, and mammy says they will blow again next spring," answered Betty, showing her poor little garden, which consisted of the hyacinth, tulip, and one stout dandelion, blooming bravely in an old teapot.

"That will be a long time to wait, won't it?"

"Yes'm; but I go and take peeks at them flowers in the shop, and once the man gave me a pink that hadn't no stem. Maybe he will again, and so I'll get along," said Betty, softly touching her cheerful dandelion as if it were a friend.

"I wish you would come and see my garden, little Betty. You should pick as many flowers as you liked, and play there all day long. I suppose your mother couldn't spare you for a visit, could she?"

Betty's face shone at the blissful thought, then the smile faded, and she shook her head, saying, steadily, "No, miss, I guess she couldn't, for she gets so tired, I like to help her by carrying home the clothes. Some day, maybe, I can come."

Something in the patient little face touched Helen, and made her feel as if she had been too busy thinking of her own burden to help others bear theirs. She longed to do something, but did not know how till Mrs. Simms showed her the way, by saying, as she stroked the frizzly little head that leaned against her,—

"Betty thinks a heap of flowers, and 'pears to git lots of comfort out of 'em. She's a good child, and some day we are going to see the country, soon as ever we can afford it."

"Meantime the country must come to you," said Helen, with a happy thought shining in her face. "If you are willing, I will make a nice little plan with Betty, so she can have a posy all the time. I shall come in town twice a week to take my German lessons, and if Betty will be at the corner of the Park, by the deer, every Wednesday and Saturday morning at ten o'clock, I'll have a nice nosegay for her."

If she had proposed to present the child with all the sweeties in Copeland's delightful shop, it would not have given greater joy. Betty could only dance a jig of rapture among the wash-tubs, and Mrs. Simms thank Helen with tears in her eyes.

"Ain't she just like a good fairy, mammy?" said Betty, settling down in an empty clothes-basket to brood over the joyful prospects.

"No, honey, she's an angel," answered mammy, folding her tired hands for a moment's rest, when her guest had gone.

Helen heard both question and answer, and sighed to herself, "I wish somebody else thought so."

When the first Wednesday came, Betty was at the trysting-place half an hour too soon, and had time to tell the mild-eyed deer all about it, before Miss Helen came.

That meeting was a pretty sight, though only a fawn and an old apple-woman saw it. Helen was half-hidden behind a great nosegay of June roses, lilies of the valley, sweet jonquils and narcissus, sprays of tender green, and white lilac plumes. Betty gave one cry of rapture, as she clutched it in both hands, trembling w............