84 AUDREY.

older than Audrey; they liked nothing better than to sit
together in Helen’s cosey room, while the sun shone in brightly
and the bird in the window sang blithely. Sister Helen would
tell Audrey long fanciful tales, which were’ the more delightful
that they were all her own. So to sister Helen Audrey bore
her flowers, when they were placed in a glass pitcher and set
in the window. Audrey told her sister of the one little violet
she had left in the woods. “Would you have gathered it,
sister?” she asked. “It would have faded so soon, and I felt
as if it would be happier in its own woods. I wish you would
tell me a story about it,” she went on, after a pause.

Sister Helen sat quietly sewing for a few minutes, then she
began :

“A busy time there was underground: the moles were be-
stirring themselves, and the field-mice twirled their long tails
about at a great rate, sitting with their whiskers close together
. and their black eyes sparkling with excitement.

“No wonder, for it was time for the field-fairies to come;
already the grass was quite green; tiny yellow buttons on the
buttercups showed that they were nearly ready to receive some
one.

“Tam quite sure that the violets have arrived,’ said a mole.

“*Humph? returned a field-mouse, ‘you have no eyes; I’d
like to know how you are to tell.’

“* Never mind,’ replied the mole; ‘I have a nose and can
smell,’