road. Gipsying along he was, light-foot, light-clad, and over his shoulder pickaxe and spade."

   Then the man cried out in terror, and ran to the throne, and pulled the veil away, and tore the robes apart: and lo! the veil holding empty air, and the great robes folded in upon themselves, and the gold chains binding them.

   A child found in its garden a plant. Fair and stately it was, full of rosy buds, with green leaves strong and luminous. The child admired it greatly.

   "How fair it is!" he said. "How full of light and fragrance! but how does it grow? One should know that."

   He looked down, and saw that the plant came up out of the ground.

   "This is strange!" he said. "How should so fair a thing come up out of this black and dirty soil? I must look to this!"

   He dug away the soil, and found the roots of the plant, bare and twisted, clinging to the soil and dark with the touch of it.

   "Ah!" said the child, "this is terrible. Has that fair crown of rose and green

   drawn its life from so foul a source as this? Oh, sorrow and shame!" and he wept, and wrung his hands.

   As he sorrowed, the Angel of the Garden passed by, with her arms full of flowers and fruit.

   "Little one," she said, "have you anything for me?"

   "Alas!" said the child. "Look! I had this fair plant, the sweetest in the world, but I find that its life grows out of the black and ugly mould; its roots are black with it. Look! the flower begins to droop!"

   "Yes," said the Angel. "Oh, the pity! you have killed it."

   In the early morning, when the dew was bright on the grass, a child passed along the highway, and sang as he went. It was spring, and the ferns were unrolling their green bundles, and the hepatica showed purple under her gray fur. The child looked about him with eager, happy eyes, rejoicing in all he saw, and answering the birds' songs with notes as gay as their own. Now and then he dropped a seed here or there, for he had a handful of them; sometimes he threw one to the birds; again he dropped one for the squirrels; and still again he would toss one into the air for very play, for that was what he loved best.

 Prev. P 16/37 next