up in the blue air, looked at the little white clouds and fancied
himself seen by just as many eyes as they were. "Why, this is even
better than I thought," said he. "I never fancied I should sail about
the sky!"

After some long sunny days of travel he saw below him a beautiful
garden all shut in with walls, in which roses and fruit-trees grew.

[Illustration:]

"This is the place for me!" he said, and down he went, and perched on
the edge of the great drive in front of all the flower-beds and just
before the windows of the house. "Nothing could suit me better!" said
he. "I shall have plenty of good company, and I have found a very good
place to make my home!" So he folded up his downy wings and quickly
fell asleep.

Another of the winged children went skipping over the fields, stopping
now and then to play with some flower, or just to bask in the sun.
After a time she came to a sunny bank of grass on the side of the
high-road.

"This is the place for me," she said. "Here I will live and grow, so
that all who pass along this road will be certain to think how
beautiful I am!"

And so she settled down among the grass, quite happy.

And a third said to herself: "It is good to be of some use in the
world!" So when one day the breeze took her to the town, she stopped
in a flower-pot full of earth that stood upon the dingy window-sill of
a poor little house. "I shall be valued here," she said, "and the poor
folks will think a lot of me for growing in such a place. After all,
it's a fine thing to make people happy."

So she cuddled down in the flower-pot and went to sleep.

And all the other dandelion-children who had sat on the stem that day
went dancing about, not knowing what they wanted. They played in the
fields and never thought of anything else till one day the rain came
and wet their wings and beat them down among the meadows just where
they happened to be. But it was very comfortable in the deep grass,
and so they just went to sleep too.

When they woke again, they all had roots and little leaves, and deep
in their hearts the buds of flowers. For they had grown up now, and
they were plants. At first they were all very small, but the sunshine
gradually made them bigger and bigger and drew out the flowers folded
in their hearts.

Then the one who had chosen the beautiful garden for his home proudly
opened his first yellow flower and looked round to see what the other
flowers thought of that.

But alas