y
a warm summer, the Ephemera, the flies that exist for only a day,
had fluttered about the old oak, enjoyed life and felt happy and if,
for a moment, one of the tiny creatures rested on one of his large
fresh leaves, the tree would always say, "Poor little creature! your
whole life consists only of a single day. How very short. It must be
quite melancholy."

"Melancholy! what do you mean?" the little creature would always
reply. "Everything around me is so wonderfully bright and warm, and
beautiful, that it makes me joyous."

"But only for one day, and then it is all over."

"Over!" repeated the fly; "what is the meaning of all over? Are
you all over too?"

"No; I shall very likely live for thousands of your days, and my
day is whole seasons long; indeed it is so long that you could never
reckon it out."

"No? then I don't understand you. You may have thousands of my
days, but I have thousands of moments in which I can be merry and
happy. Does all the beauty of the world cease when you die?"

"No," replied the tree; "it will certainly last much longer,--infinitely
longer than I can even think of."

"Well, then," said the little fly, "we have the same time to live;
only we reckon differently." And the little creature danced and floated
in the air, rejoicing in her delicate wings of gauze and velvet,
rejoicing in the balmy breezes, laden with the fragrance of
clover-fields and wild roses, elder-blossoms and honeysuckle, from the
garden hedges, wild thyme, primroses, and mint, and the scent of all
these was so strong that the perfume almost intoxicated the little fly.
The long and beautiful day had been so full of joy and sweet delights,
that when the sun sank low it felt tired of all its happiness and
enjoyment. Its wings could sustain it no longer, and gently and slowly
it glided down upon the soft waving blades of grass, nodded its little
head as well as it could nod, and slept peacefully and sweetly. The
fly was dead.

"Poor little Ephemera!" said the oak; "what a terribly short
life!" And so, on every summer day the dance was repeated, the same
questions asked, and the same answers given. The same thing was
continued through many generations of Ephemera; all of them felt
equally merry and equally happy.

The oak remained awake through the morning of spring, the noon
of summer, and the evening of autumn; its time of rest, its night drew
nigh--winter was coming. Already the storms were singing, "Good-night