was forever peeping out of her
habitation in the hedge.

"What a beautiful rose!" cried the poet, and leaping over the old
stone-wall he plucked the rose from the mother-tree,--yes, the poet
bore away this very rose who had hoped to be the poet's bride.

Then the rose-tree wept bitterly, and so did her other daughters; the
south wind wailed, and the old hoptoad gave three croaks so dolorous
that if you had heard them you would have said that his heart was truly
broken. All were sad,--all but the envious dormouse, who chuckled
maliciously, and said it was no more than they deserved.

The thrush saw the poet bearing the rose away, yet how could the
fluttering little creature hope to prevail against the cruel invader?
What could he do but twitter in anguish? So there are tragedies and
heartaches in lives that are not human.

As the poet returned to the city he wore the rose upon his breast. The
rose was happy, for the poet spoke to her now and then, and praised her
loveliness, and she saw that her beauty had given him an inspiration.

"The rose despised my brother! Aha, aha, foolish rose,--but she shall
wither!"

It was the breeze that spake; far away from the lake in the quiet
valley its voice was very low, but the rose heard and trembled.

"It's a lie," cried the rose. "I shall not die. The poet loves me,
and I shall live forever upon his bosom."

Yet a singular faintness--a faintness never felt before--came upon the
rose; she bent her head and sighed. The heat--that was all--was very
oppressive, and here at the entrance to the city the tumult aroused an
aggravating dust. The poet seemed suddenly to forget the rose. A
carriage was approaching, and from the carriage leaned a lady, who
beckoned to the poet. The lady was very fair, and the poet hastened to
answer her call. And as he hastened the rose fell from his bosom into
the hot highway, and the poet paid no heed. Ascending into the
carriage with the lady (I am sure she must have been a princess!) the
poet was whirled away, and there in the stifling dust lay the fainting
rose, all stained and dying.

The sparrows flew down and pecked at her inquisitively; the cruel
wagons crushed her beneath their iron wheels; careless feet buffeted
her hither and thither. She was no longer a beautiful rose; no, nor
even a reminiscence of one,--simply a colorless, scentless, ill-shapen
mass.

But all at once she heard a familiar voice, and then she saw familiar