time before she came in sight of the poor old house which she recognized as Molly Skelton’s.  Daisy drew the reins then and let Loupe walk slowly up a slight ascent in the road which led to it.  But when the chaise was fairly opposite the house door, Daisy drew the reins still more and brought Loupe to a stand-still.  She peered forth then anxiously to see if the poor old inmate of the house were to be seen anywhere.

As she looked, the house door opened; and with a very straitened and touched heart Daisy watched the crippled old creature come from within, crawl down over the door step, and make her slow way into the little path before the house.  A path of a few yards ran from the road to the house door, and it was bordered with a rough-looking array of flowers.  Rough-looking, because they were set or had sprung up rather confusedly, and the path between had no care but was only worn by the feet of travellers and the hands and knees of the poor inhabitant of the place.  Yet some sort of care was bestowed on the flowers themselves, for no weeds had been suffered to choke them; and even the encroaching grass had been removed from trespassing too nearly on their little occupation of ground.  The flowers themselves shot up and grew as they had a mind.  Prince’s feather was conspicuous, and some ragged balsams.  A few yellow marigolds made a forlorn attempt to look bright, and one tall sunflower raised its great head above all the rest; proclaiming the quality of the little kingdom where it reigned.  The poor cripple moved down a few steps from the house door, and began grubbing with her hands around the roots of a bunch of balsams.

Daisy looked a minute or two, very still, and then bade the boy hold her pony; while without troubling herself about his mystification she got out of the chaise, and basket in hand, opened the wicket and softly went up the path.  The neat little shoes and spotless white dress were close beside the poor creature grubbing there in the ground before she knew it, and there they stood still; Daisy was a good deal at a loss how to speak.  She was not immediately perceived; the head of the cripple had a three-cornered handkerchief thrown over it to defend it from the sun and she was earnestly grubbing at the roots of her balsam; the earth-stained fingers and the old brown stuff dress, which was of course dragged along in the dirt too, made a sad contrast with the spotless freshness of the little motionless figure that was at her side, almost touching her.  Daisy concluded to wait till she should be seen, and then speak, though how to speak she did not very well know and she rather dreaded the moment.

It came, when in throwing her weeds aside a glance of the cripple saw, instead of stones and grass, two very neat and black and well shaped little shoes planted there almost within reach of her hand.  She drew herself back from the balsam and looked sideways up, to see what the shoes belonged to.  Daisy saw her face then; it was a bad face; so disagreeable that she looked away from it instantly to the balsams.