ung fir trees in the forest began to long for Christmas, but
it was a long time to Christmas yet.

"Here I am standing yet!" said the Thistle. "It is as if nobody
thought of me, and yet I managed the match. They were betrothed, and
they have had their wedding; it is now a week ago. I won't take a
single step-because I can't."

A few more weeks went by. The Thistle stood there with his last
single flower large and full. This flower had shot up from near the
roots; the wind blew cold over it, and the colors vanished, and the
flower grew in size, and looked like a silvered sunflower.

One day the young pair, now man and wife, came into the garden.
They went along by the paling, and the young wife looked across it.

"There's the great thistle still growing," she said. "It has no
flowers now."

"Oh, yes, the ghost of the last one is there still," said he.
And he pointed to the silvery remains of the flower, which looked like
a flower themselves.

"It is pretty, certainly," she said. "Such an one must be carved
on the frame of our picture."

And the young man had to climb across the palings again, and to
break off the calyx of the thistle. It pricked his fingers, but then
he had called it a ghost. And this thistle-calyx came into the garden,
and into the house, and into the drawing-room. There stood a
picture--"Young Couple." A thistle-flower was painted in the
buttonhole of the bridegroom. They spoke about this, and also about
the thistle-flower they brought, the last thistle-flower, now gleaming
like silver, whose picture was carved on the frame.

And the breeze carried what was spoken away, far away.

"What one can experience!" said the Thistle Bush. "My first born
was put into a buttonhole, and my youngest has been put in a frame.
Where shall I go?"

And the Ass stood by the road-side, and looked across at the
Thistle.

"Come to me, my nibble darling!" said he. "I can't get across to
you."

But the Thistle did not answer. He became more and more
thoughtful--kept on thinking and thinking till near Christmas, and
then a flower of thought came forth.

"If the children are only good, the parents do not mind standing
outside the garden pale."

"That's an honorable thought," said the Sunbeam. "You shall also
have a good place."

"In a pot or in a frame?" asked the Thistle.

"In a story," replied the Sunbeam.

THE THORNY ROAD OF HONOR

An old story yet lives of the "Thorny Road of Honor," of a
ma