eads.

Meanwhile the meadow grew browner and browner, and its pretty dress was
being scorched so that by and by no one would have recognized it for
the gay thing it had been a week ago. And still the sun glared angrily
down, and the little breeze was dead.

Then the grasses laid down their tiny spears, and the dandelions bent
their heads, and the locusts and the crickets and the grasshoppers
called feebly,--

"Oh, little brook, cannot you get out of your bed and come this way?"

"Our hearts are broken," cried the daisies.

"We shall die," wailed the ragged-sailors. Then they all waited for
the brook to reply; but she was silent, and call as they would they
could get no answer.

"Hush!" whispered the springs. "Her bed is empty. Have n't you
noticed how little she sang lately? The weeds must have fallen asleep
and she has run away. You know they always hindered her."

They did not tell that they were too weak to feed the brook; so it had
dried away. And still the sun glared down, and the little breeze was
dead, and the brook had disappeared; while there on the door-step sat
Marie weeping big tears,--for the little maid was always sad, and come
when you would, there was Marie with her dark eyes filled and brimming
over with the shining drops.

The beeches beckoned her from the garden; she saw them do it. Their
long branches waved to her to come, like inviting arms; and still
weeping, she stole quietly away.

"Come," whispered the gnarled apple-trees down in the orchard; and she
threaded her way sadly among the trunks, while her tears fell splash,
splash, on her white pinafore.

"Here!" gasped the meadow-grass; and she followed on, sobbing softly to
herself, as she sat down where, days ago, the brook had merrily sung.

"Why do you grieve?" asked the pebbles; and she heard them and
answered,--

"Because I am so sad. Things are never as I want them, and so I cry.
I am made to obey, and then, when the stars come out and I wish to stay
up, I am sent to bed; and the next morning, when I am so sleepy I can
hardly open my eyes, I am made to get up. Oh, this is a very sad
world!" And she wept afresh.

Then the flowers and the grasses and the pebbles, seeing her tears, all
said at once: "Would you like to stay here with us? Then you could
stay awake all night and gaze at the stars, and in the morning you need
not get up. You may lie in the brook's empty bed, and you need never
obey your parents any more