"I'll take my sixpence along, and spend it, mother."
"What are you going to buy?" asked Mrs Lee.
"I don't know," replied Emma. "Sometimes I think I will buy some cakes; and
then I think I will get a whole sixpence worth of cream candy, I like it
so."
"Have you forgotten the book?"
"Oh, no! Sometimes I think I will buy the book. Indeed, I don't know what
to buy."
In this undecided state of mind, Emma started with her mother to see her
aunt. They had not gone far before they met a poor woman, with some very
pretty bunches of flowers for sale. She carried them on a tray. She stopped
before Mrs Lee and her little girl, and asked if they would not buy some
flowers.
"How much are they a bunch?" asked Emma.
"Sixpence," replied the woman.
"Mother! I'll tell you what I will do with my sixpence," said Emma, her
face brightening with the thought that came into her mind. "I will buy a
bunch of flowers for Aunt Mary. You know how she loves flowers. Can't I do
it, mother?"
"Oh, yes, dear! Do it, by all means, if you think you can give up the nice
cream candy, or the picture book, for the sake of gratifying your aunt."
Emma did not hesitate a moment, but selected a very handsome bunch of
flowers, and paid her sixpence to the woman with a feeling of real
pleasure.
Aunt Mary was very much pleased with the bouquet Emma brought her.
"The sight of these flowers, and their delightful perfume, really makes me
feel better," she said, after she had held them in her hand for a little
while; "I am very much obliged to my niece, for thinking of me."
That evening, Emma looked up from a book which her mother had bought her as
they returned home from Aunt Mary's, and with which she had been much
entertained, and said--
"I think the spending of my sixpence gave me a double pleasure."
"How so, dear?" asked Mrs Lee.
"I made aunt happy, and the flower woman too. Didn't you notice how pleased
the flower woman looked? I wouldn't wonder if she had little children at
home, and thought about the bread that sixpence would buy them when I paid
it to her. Don't you think she did?"
"I cannot tell that, Emma," replied her mother; "but I shouldn't at all
wonder if it were as you suppose. And so it gives you pleasure to think you
have made others happy?"
"Indeed it does."
"Acts of kindness," replied Emma's mother, "always produce a feeling of
pleasure. This every one may know. And it is the purest and truest pleasure
we experience in this world. Try and remember this little incident of the
flowers as long as you live, my child; and let the thought of it remind you
that every act of self-denial brings to the one who makes it a sweet
delight."