eeze and what he may
tell you next summer. I may not be here to care for you, but he will
surely come and tempt you to go along with him. He is fickle and will
carry you far, far away and then drop you in a place perhaps worse than
this, for we do not belong here, but in a garden with other flowers. I
ran away from my mother vine one day, and this is where the breeze left
me; so cling to the big tree as long as you bloom, for here you are
safe at least, even if you do not live and bloom in a garden." And
then she went to sleep.

THE PEACOCK BUTTERFLIES

[Illustration: The Peacock Butterflies]

Plain little Miss Butterfly sat on a bush one day, when along came Mr.
Peacock, with his tail full spread.

"Oh--oh!" sighed little Miss Butterfly. "How handsome he is! If only
I could have a dress like the colors of Mr. Peacock's tail all the
other butterflies in the world would envy me.

"But here am I, only a plain little creature, with no color to boast
of, while all my cousins have gorgeously colored gowns. Oh, how I do
wish he would give me two feathers from his tail that I might have them
made into a gown!"

And then this plain little Butterfly, because she was so plain and had
no beauty to speak about, began to think about handsome Mr. Peacock.
"I wonder if he is vain?" she said out loud.

"Vain! Of course he is. There is no one in the world so vain as he,"
said a Bee, who was sipping honey near by.

Miss Butterfly did not ask any questions, and Mr. Bee was too busy to
say more. But when he flew away Miss Butterfly began to think, and the
more she thought the stronger became her intention to fly over to the
Peacock and speak to him.

Over she went, alighting on a flower near him.

"Mr. Peacock," she said, "I wonder you never have wished to see
yourself, you are so handsome."

"I have," replied Mr. Peacock; "often I have gazed into the pond and
beheld my handsome self."

"Oh, that is not at all what I mean," said Miss Butterfly. "Suppose
you were to see the very pattern of your beautiful tail flying all
about you. Then you could look at your beauty as it really is."

"I do not see at all what you mean," said Mr. Peacock, who was not very
quick at thinking.

"I mean if you would give me two tips from your beautiful tail I could
have a handsomer gown than any other butterfly in the world," said the
little flatterer, "and besides that, you would no longer hear the
yellow-and-black and those