116 Old Primrose

ing primroses, when she came suddenly
upon the old man sitting on a bank under
a hedge, with his toes in the grass.

“How dreadfully ugly you are!” ex-
claimed Daisy (very rudely). ‘‘ You are not
a bit like a primrose !”

Now this information was a great shock to
the old man, and rankled deeply in his mind.
He only said, ““ You don’t see me in the right
lightjust here, and can’t judge,” pretending not
to care. But as a matter of fact he dzd care;
for he had always had a sort of notion that
he was something like a primrose, his mother
having told him so at the age of one; and
this really accounted for his habit of sitting
under a hedge with his toes in the grass.

He tried hard, when Daisy had gone away,
to look more like a primrose ; he held up his
hands in the position of leaves, and tried to
sit in a group like primroses do: but his
belief was really shattered, and he got up
moodily and went home.

All night he lay awake, brooding over what
Daisy Tinkler had said; and next morning
he went and laid an information with the