leaves, and be more ornamental to the garden."

"I'll save him that trouble if my life is spared. I have no desire
to be decked in borrowed leaves. The oaks have always kept up a good
appearance; but oh, dear me, vine, didn't that blast take your breath
away? I fear I _shall_ die; but, if I do live, I'll show the gardener
what I can do. But, vine," and the voice of the oak trembled, "tell the
gardener, when he comes in the morning, if--if I am dead--that--that
the dreadful tempest killed instead of helped me."

The wind made such a roaring sound that the oak could not hear her
reply, and he tried now to become reconciled to death. He thought much
in that brief space of time and resolved, if his life was spared him,
that he would try and put forth his protecting branches over the beds of
flowers at his feet, to protect them from the blazing sun, and try to be
more kind and friendly to all. Deeper and deeper struck the roots into
the earth, till a new life-thrill shot through its veins. Was it death?

The oak raised its head. The clouds were drifting to the south. All
was calm, and the stars shone like friendly eyes in the heavens above
him.

"That oak would have surely died but for the tempest which passed
over us," said the gardener, a few weeks later, as he was showing his
garden to a friend.

The gardener stood beneath the branches, and saw with pleasure new
leaves coming forth and the texture of the old ones already finer and
softer.

"It only needed a firmer hold on the earth. The poor thing could not
draw moisture enough from the ground before the storm shook its roots
and embedded them deeper. If I had known the philosophy of storms
before, I need not have lost the other oak."

Here the old gardener sat beneath the branches of the oak, and they
seemed to rise and fall as if bestowing blessings on his head. That spot
became his favorite resting-place amid his labors for many years. The
oak lived to a good old age, and was the gardener's pride. Maidens
gathered its leaves and wove garlands for their lovers. Children sported
under its boughs. It was blessed and happy in making others so. It
had learned the lesson of the storm, and was often heard to say to the
young oaks growing up about it, "Sunshine and balmy breezes have their
part in our growth, but they are not all that is needful for our true
development."

IX.

TRUTH AND ERROR.

Amid the starry realms there lived an old philosopher, a man