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id the oak; "and the bellflower, and the dear little daisy." "We are here! we are here!" chanted sweet low voices on all sides. "But the pretty anemones, and the bed of lilies of the valley, and all the flowers that bloomed so long ago,--would that they were here!" "We are here! we are here!" was the answer, and it seemed to come from the air above, as if they had fled upward first. "Oh, this is too great happiness!" exclaimed the oak tree; and now he felt that his own roots were loosening themselves from the earth. "This is best of all," he said. "Now no bounds shall detain me. I can soar to the heights of light and glory, and I have all my dear ones with me." Such was the oak tree's Christmas dream. And all the while a mighty storm swept the sea and land; the ocean rolled his heavy billows on the shore, the tree cracked, and was rent and torn up by the roots at the very moment when he dreamed that he was soaring to the skies. Next day the sea was calm again, and a large vessel that had weathered the storm hoisted all its flags for Merry Christmas. "The tree is gone--the old oak tree, our beacon! How can its place ever be supplied?" said the crew. This was the tree's funeral eulogium, while the Christmas hymn re-echoed from the wood. HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (Adapted) A PRAYER The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces; let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonoured; and grant us in the end the gift of sleep. R. L. STEVENSON [Illustration: IN THE PASTURE] THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs, the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain i
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