me, and was obliged to return without
her. So he took extra care of the plant, and it grew to be the pride of
the garden; while the seed that had her own way was roaming over the
world. The truant one soon lost all her influence over the winds, who
finally refused to carry about a good-for-nothing seed while they had so
much needful work to perform. A cold northern blast was the last one
she could persuade to bear her, and he dropped her on a rock, where she
at last perished from exposure to the rain and cold.

The day before her death, a company of people passed by her, bearing
in their hands some rare and fragrant blossoms, to which she felt a
strange attraction. This gave place to a deep thrill of sorrow as she
heard them describe the lovely plant which grew in a beautiful garden,
and which by their description she knew was her own home, which she
in her folly had left.

"Had I but accepted the conditions of growth, I too might have been
a lovely plant, giving and receiving pleasure," she said, after the
people had passed on. "But now, alas!" and her breath grew quick and
short, "if I had only some one to profit by my last words, telling of my
life of folly, I might not have lived wholly in vain." But there was
nothing about her which she could discern save a tuft of moss upon the
cold, hard rock which must now be her death-bed.

But behind the rock, on the south side, there was growing a family of
wild daisies, who were going to migrate to a warmer part of the country
to plant their seeds before the winter came on. This was one of the
conditions which Providence ever has around the most seemingly deserted
and desolate, that her words might not only profit them, but that
they could convey the benefit of them to all wayward seeds who were
unwilling to accept the natural conditions of growth. And thus the seed,
though dying with its mission unfulfilled, did not live wholly in vain;
for its wasted life saved others from a similar fate.

XXI.

ONLY GOLD.

A parent sent his children forth one day into a fertile land to gather
fruits, flowers, and whatever was beautiful to adorn their homes. They
wandered till nightfall, gathering their treasures, while their joyous
laughter filled the air, and made music to the listening laborers in the
fields.

Just as the shadows of evening came on they approached an open field:
it was barren of verdure, but the ground was covered with golden stones,
which glittered str