d waking all the little children with kisses.

Then they took off the old green dresses of the sisters, and put pure
white robes on them and gave them crowns of pure gold. The other little
sister wished then that she had tried to do right, and drooped until she
faded away.

Madam Wind and the Bird family gave a grand concert in Maple Tree Park.
Everything was full of gladness, and the lily sisters held a reception
all day, and many people came to congratulate them upon being crowned.
Among their visitors was wee Ruth, who kissed them and took them to a
little sick friend. He smiled as she pressed them into his hand, saying:
"Take them, please, for Easter," and in her sweet child language she
told the story of Easter, and of the wonderful work the Great King's Son
did for the people of the beautiful palace.

Nature's Violet Children

Once on a sunny hill in the woods grew a little colony of violets. They
had slept quietly through the long winter, tucked up snug and warm in
the soft, white snow-blankets that King Winter had sent Mother Nature for
her flower babies. Jack Frost had gone pouting over the hills because
the little sunbeams would not play with him, and spoiled his fancy
pictures. The tiny raindrops knocked at the door of Mother Nature's
great, brown house; and the birds called to the flowers to wake up.

So the violets raised their strong, hardy leaves, lifted up their dainty
heads, and were glad because spring had come. While they were so happy,
a little girl came to the woods in search of wild flowers. "How pretty
those violets are," she said. "I wish I could stay and watch the buds
open, but I will take some of them with me and keep them in water, and
they will remind me of this sunny hill, and perhaps they will blossom."

Then the violets were frightened and whispered, "Please don't take us!"
But Ruth did not hear them, and she pulled stem after stem till her
small hands were quite filled. Then she said good-by to the pretty
place, and the little violets said good-by, too.

When Ruth got home, she put the buds into a vase of water, and set them
in an open window where they could see the blue sky and feel the kisses
of the sunbeams. But the poor little violets drooped for a time, they
were so homesick, and whispered to each other, "Let us give up and die!"
A beautiful canary in a cage over their heads sang "cheer up! chirrup!"
but they would not listen to him at first.

By and by they said, "Wh