PICKING PRIMROSES.

SusAN Pavmer’s father had been a gardener at the big -
house, and when he died Mr. Weston arranged that Mrs.
Palmer and Susan should live in the pretty little lodge
which he had just built by his park gates, Susan’s mother
was a good needlewoman, and was able to support her-
self and her daughter upon her earnings, added to the
many presents she received from Mr. and Mrs. Weston
and their children, who were all very fond of “dear old
nurse,” as they always called her. Susan had long been
crippled, owing to a fall she had when quite a little baby,
and so could not do much to help her mother. Still, she
always tried to be as useful as possible, and when Mrs.
Palmer was busy could open and shut the lodge gate as
carriages came or went from the big house. What Susan
liked most to do was, when the spring came, to hobble on
her crutches to a pretty copse close by, where all sorts of wild
flowers grew. There, seated on a bank, she could pick prim-
roses without having to move much, and make them up with
violets and anemones into pretty nosegays that her kind

friend the carrier used to take and sell for her in the town.