The Prescott daily news., 1912-08-23
A STORY OF V0LETS

''vilits, vi'iits, only penny bunch" The flower-girl, eagerly Ques- tions each hurrying face.
 A London street, its rows of gaunt houses; the heavy atmosphere, suf- fused with faint veil of gray fog, the dull, monotonous rumble of traffic, the weary feeling of struggling human 1ty, the sound of anxious footsteps has, tening along the paved road of life. The only color in this dim picture a patch of violets-violets heaped in profusion on the fiower-girrs tray. Vi- olets, whose breath, laden with thou sand memories, floats on the stifling air and creeps unbidden, 1t may be un- welcome, into the very heart of every, passerby.
 The city man, his mind running in figures, pulls up short to buy a bunch of the flowers, whose sweet. scent stirs his dull memory into activity, telling him that he still possesses a heart. Emotiols, long stilled, memories bit ter-sweet, youthful dreams awakened by the fragrance of those violets, rise consistently all day long, following him, tugging at his sleeve, even in the midst of the al-abiding worship of Mamman.
 Poor little modest fower!" A youth, battling with the harder side of life, looks down with pity on the bunch Of violets in his hand. Like a soft caress their breath touches his sensitive heart, raising him above the hum of city life into the fools par adise" of fancy.
 Two girls approach; one Is richly dressed. The fower-girl steps eagerly forward, her monotonous cry chang ing to note of earnest interrogation. The elder of the two waves aside the modest English flower; the more ex- pesive Parma violet is selected-they remind her of Nice and of the Carni- val Her companion, in the plain brown dress, scarcely hears these flip pant remarks. Bending over the tray of English violets, she has become un- conscious of her surroundings The violets whisper in her ear of babbling brook and the song of birds. She sees her home-the tiny cottage, her mothers smile; her little brother, for whose sake she has left that simple, happy life to live in the glare of Lon don society, where she must silently endure a thousand yelled insults that only a dependent can understand. When she turns away violet glistens in the feeble sunshine-a tear from a lonely, sympathetic heart lies, like a dewdrop, on the violet's breast.
 All day long the violets pour out their fragrant life on the sullen air, growing fainter, fading away as the day wears on. Hundreds hurry past. Few allow themselves to catch the sweet thoughts that hover round the flowers; fewer still have time to stop and buy. The fiower-girl knows noth. ing of this magic fragrance. The scent of tray full of fresh violets brings back the picture of a cold, bleak morning, a noisy market, the beginning of hard days work and vague, uneasy questionings prompt ed by bangs of hunger. Far dearer to her heart than the fairest flower is the sight of a little heap of dirty cop pers. counted out on an empty tray.
 A fashionably-dressed couple stop before the fower-girl The man of- fers his companion a bunch of Eng fish violets, but as before, they are scornfully declined.
 Parma violetsLook so well on fur; English violets are so common!" she explains.
 The man puts the rejected bunch of violets in his buttonhole, his thoughts leap back to forsaken memory-the street fades; the sound of traffic grows less; he answers his companion me-
 his thoughts are far