n. The marigold, that star of the earth, with its bright,
yellow petals, reminded them of the golden stars of heaven; the daisy,
with its pure white blossom, bathed in the dew and sunlight of smiling
morning, recalled to their minds the stories they had heard in their
childhood about the diadems of fairies; and the blue forget-me-nots
seemed to twinkle like the blue eyes of the angels. And when winter
came, and the fair summer flowers faded away; moralizings on life, on
death and eternity, came sighing in their expiring exhalations, over
that simple people's souls. It was from being taught, in this way, to
love the flowers of the country, that I Cultivated sympathies which
pre-disposed me to love city flowers.

When I was first transplanted from my own green, native valley, into
the heart of a great city; when my early home was levelled to the
ground, and when its flowers were withered, never to bloom any more, I
felt as if I had come amongst grim walls to wither too, and had been
uprooted from the light and life of my youth that I might die. The birds
that wailed around me in their prison cages, seemed to weep for the
hawthorn and alder trees that were growing beside the ruins of my old
home, and I wept with them, for I, too, was sighing for nature.

As I became familiar with the lanes, and streets, and byways of the
city, I began at last to find, that there were flowers, too--flowers
beautiful as the roses in the gardens of paradise, and bright as the
smile of Abel when he worshipped his God. Day by day, in my little
walks, I passed a large square encompassed by a low wall and lofty iron
railing, in which several hundreds of boys and girls with rosy cheeks
and light hearts, sported, and sang like fairies holding festival. Here
were faces lovelier than roses; lips brighter than ripe cherries, and
eyes purer than dew; from the day I first beheld those flowers of the
city, I ceased to sigh for the country and its flowers. I used to stand
and gaze at them with grateful delight, and live over again my own
childhood's hours, as I watched their childhood's sports. By and by I
knew and became known to several of those children; I gave them kind
words, and they returned me beautiful smiles.

There was amongst that host of children one little boy whose face was
very fair; whose eyes were very bright, and whose little feet made merry
music on the smooth pavement. Girls have a strong intuitive love of the
beautiful, and Johnny