and ran to pick it up; but when she saw how prettily it was märkt and shaped, shē said, ‘I dāre say it fell out of the sky, and is a greāt curiosity.' That was a word she had learn'd from her brother, who was a big boy. Sō shē carried the Pebble into the house, and got upon a stool to put it upon the marble chimney-piece, between a piece of spär and a bit of copper-ōre. And the little girl thought it a greāt cūriosity, and the Pebble thought so too, and they didn't care what any body else thought."

Thank you,” said the child to the Bramble : "I'll gō now; but may I take some of the wool? it will do for a pincushion." The Bramble did not think this polīte, but she said, "Yes ;" and so the little girl pickt off the wool, saying "I'll leave you my flowers instead."

The ōld Bramble certainly did not like any flowers sō well as her own white blossoms; but she said, “Very well, you may leave them, for they will bring the bees, and I shall have a chat with them when you are gone."-From Twilight Thoughts."

66

THE THISTLE-SEED.

The ōld Thistle grew in a large fiēld not very far from the hedge, and a stiff, stately

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dāme she was. She stood bōlt upright, and held out her shärp prickles as a wârning to all that came by not to approach too near. truth she was very fearless and stout-hearted, and the only living thing she dreaded was an Ass. She would say, "Though he looks sō stupid and härmless, he is mōre dāngerous and mischievous than any other creature; hē neither respects one's station nor one's prickles. I cannot endure those long grey ears."

The ōld Thistle was fond and proud of her children, but she was very particular about them. She did not approve the rambling ways of the blue Vetches and white Bind-weed at âll to climb ōver hedges and cling to every shrub and tree they might meet, she thought extremely undignified, and the sign of a very bad education.

Her children were all drest exactly alike, in little short purple petticoats, and kept together in the narrow green nursery at the top of the house. There they might enjoy the sunshine and see what was going on around; but as to dancing and playing with the leaves and flowers about them, that was quite out of the question.

'Only wait," the ōld Thistle said,—“ ōnly wait patiently till you are ōlder, the sun will

soon change your purple frocks into white silken wings, and then you may fly whither you will into the wide world."

So the children waited.

It was the very last day of July when the ōld Thistle tōld her children that next morning, at sun-rise, they were to leave hōme; a neighborly breeze had promised to câll aș hē past, and teach them to use their wings.

Was not this delightful news for the children? All night the old Thistle stood as erect and stately as if she did not căre a bit about pärting with her children, but shē did not sleep a wink. All night she listen'd sorrowfully to the crumbling of the nursery wâlls; at sunrise the children would be free to use their new white wings.

With the first dawn the good Breeze was there, and when he had whisper'd a few words to the grave ōld Thistle, hē shōw'd the children how to unfold their wings. At first they were heavy and moist, and many of them never rōṣe at all, but alighted quietly at their mother's feet, clinging to each other in the dewy grass; some flew a little way, and then got entangled in the hedge, and remain'd there; but one flew high, and higher still, with the morning Breeze,

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and as the sun came fully out, and dried the silky wings, it sail'd up joyously into the fair blue summer skỹ, ōver the field where the deşerted nursery stood, past the village where the swallows lookt out of their snug nests beneath the eaves, and sleepy-eyed children peept from behind the blinds and saw the pretty Seed fly bỹ.

When the sun grew hot the happy Thistleseed sail'd slowly over a field of ripening

corn.

Thousands of white Butterflies flutter'd among the full ears of the Corn, and the proud rustling Corn whisper'd, "Why do you flutter sō gaily, and spread your quivering wings, little Butterflies? We shall live and rejoice in the sunshine many a day, but you will âll die to-night." And the Butterflies closed their wings, all palpitating with fear and sorrow, and rested sadly on the corn. But there were two that flew up high into the wârm air, and spōrted merrily; their fair wings kist each other as they flew, and they said, "We are together and glad, we have sunshine and flowers to-day, we are together and glad, thōugh wẽ die to-night."

This made the Thistle-seed feel lonely, and it flew away from the Butterflies and the

rustling Corn, and rested awhile on the leaf of an oak that grew by the roadside.

In the shadow of a tree sat a man weeping, and a dead child lay at his side; but he wept less for the dead than the living, for his children were ragged and hungry, and he was poor and could give them nothing; the oak-tree waş âll their shelter from sun and from storm. A bird settled on the branch and shook the light Thistle-seed from the leaf so that it floated free in the air, and the man raised his weeping eyes, and it came into his mind that a bright little flower had faded so that the bright and happy Seed might wing its way to the blue sky. He lookt more calmly on his faded child, mōre patiently on his living babeṣ; and the Seed went on its way.

It was high noon when the Thistle-seed flew over a beautiful still lake. The wild-duck fed her brood among the reeds, and the white lilies floated near them, blue dragon-flies därted hither and thither, and now and then a leaping fish dimpled the surface of the water. The câlm, clear, blue eye of the lake lookt up to the clear blue eye of heaven, as a placid babe might look up, lovingly reflecting a loving mother's gāze. The Thistle-seed could see its ōwn tiny image pictured beneath, and much it wonder'd