THE VIOLET’S MISSION.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 30, 25 July 1891, Page 211

THE VIOLET’S MISSION.

(. \ HEY are the finest violets I have A J seen this winter,’said the gardener, 118 l* e looked into the frame where 1 the l ,eaut *f u l sweet Howers showed /lx n A their purple petals against the dark a ■ '.-v,'tx shiny green leaves ; ami as he spoke N be shut down the top of the frame, /x The violets heard, and one among n them felt moved with vanity. ‘Did i' , '.ts fli you see,’she said to her neighbour, J-wS fcf / * *‘°" I’' ease< l the gardener was with /■. '/vM ■ us ‘ wonder why he keeps us ['/ if/ shut in here?’ ‘For some good • W IK tU purpose, no doubt,’ said her sister /./ fr A violet. /•'! Mr i A IBL * You are always saying that sort < Lx-— vl \ I thing,’ replied the first speaker. '■ wwv * " hat I want to know is, what are Hr we going to do? 1 heard’a lady say yesterday, she should want all the v ’ violets, so we are evidently thought much of.’ Scarcely had she spoken when the gardener again lifted the light and began plucking the flowers, ami among others he gathered the one who was so anxious to know what she was to do. He made them into a bunch, and took them to the house where a lady liverl who desired to wear them in her dress. ‘Ah !’ said the violet, ‘ this is charming. What a lovely place, how light it is, and what a lovely thing they have put mein.’ Very beautiful the violets looked. They were the sort called Marie Louise, and of a most delicate colour and perfume. The lady took them from the water, and fastened them in the white lace in front of her dress, admiring them as she did so, and our foolish violet felt quite elated with pride. ‘ Now I know what I am to do,' she cried, ‘ 1 am to lend my beauty to this grand lady, and go where she goes that everyone may admire me.’ So saying she tried to thrust heiself forward. The lady was just walking from her hall door to her carriage, and the violet fell from the bunch upon the pavement. Fortunately, it fell on the edge of the kerb, and as but few people were passing it did not get trodden on. Very miserable the violet felt as it lay in the darkness during the night, and bitterly it regretted the pride which had caused its fall. ‘ I see, after all,’it said, ‘that I was not meant for high estate. How I wish I could once more nestle among the green leaves I so longed to leave.’ Towards morning a few drops of rain fell and refreshed the violet ; and, as the first rays of the rising sun fell on the wet pavement, a young woman passed. Stooping down, she picked up the flower. ‘ What a lovely violet,’ she said. ‘Where could it have come from at this time of year? It is just like those father used to grow in the old pit at home.’ The thought of the violets at home seemed to touch her, and a few large tears fell from her eyes. She took the violet home and carefully placed it in water, and every now and then she would come and look at it. When the violet was plucked it was not fully opened, and now, aided by the fresh water and warm air of the room, it spread out its petals, and sent forth its sweet perfume. The young woman at last seemed as though she could not leave it, and presently laid her head down by the side of the glass and cried bitterly. When she rose up she looked very determined, and, wiping away her tears, said, ‘ I will go to father, and if he forgives me I slia.ll tell him this violet brought me.’ So saying she very carefully pinned the flower in her dress, and, locking the door, started off down the street. For a long time the violet was pinned in the dress, ami was drooping and faded when in the evening the young woman entered a garden gate, and walked towards a spot the Hower at once knew. There was the gardener leaning over the frame gathering some violets. The young woman walked up to him and said. ‘ Father, forgive me.’ Oh ! how pleased the man looked. He dropped his Howers and took the young woman in his arms, and for a short time neither could speak for joy. ‘So you have come back to me, Joyce,’ he said at last. ‘ Yes, father,' she said, ‘ the violet brought me here,' and she showed him the faded blossom in her dress.

The man took it in his hand. ‘ Why,’ said he, • 1 could declare this was one of the violets I gatheied yesterday.’ For a long time they talked, and the violet learnt that Joyce had left her home in anger, and the gardener had mourned for her deeply, and given her up as lost ; but the sight of the violet which she recognised as the kind grown at her old home had touched her heart, and made her long for the loving father she had left.

She laid the flower between the leaves of the old family Bible, and it remained there for a long time thinking itself forgotten. But one day the book was opened, and a voice said : ‘ See, John, this is the violet to which we owe all our happiness,’ and a young man answered, ‘ You could not have put it in a better place.’ Joyce kissed the flower, now quite dry, but still sweet, and for many, many years it remained in the Bible, and sometimes little faces looked at it and called it mother's violet, and kissed it, anil the violet knew that its mission had been to bring repentance and love to an erring heart, and was content in the happiness it had been the instrument used to accomplish. Leena.