ithin reach of where she sat.

"Watch him!" whispered her mother.

Elsie did so, holding her breath for fear of scaring him away. He
alighted on the flower, crawled clumsily over it for a second or two,
pausing now and then to bury his head in the blossom, but he did not
do anything else, that Elsie could see, except to tumble about very
awkwardly and funnily and then fly away to another buttercup and
repeat the operation. Elsie drew a long breath and looked at her
mother inquiringly.

"It did not seem as if he did much, did it, dearie!" she said in
answer to the look. "But in reality he did a great deal, for he--what
shall I say--married? Yes, married! The bee actually married those two
buttercups together, so that next season, when these two flowers, the
papa and mamma, are dead and gone, there will spring up and grow other
buttercups, baby-plants, the children of these two. If it were not for
the bee, or other insects, we should have no bright flowers in the
world."

"Oh!" Elsie's eyes opened wide. She thought a moment, then, "Could he
marry my nose to anything?" she burst forth. But seeing the absurdity
of the notion before the words were fairly out of her mouth she joined
in her mother's laughter over it.

"No, dearie, of course not. It is only flowers that bees marry
together. And not the least strange thing about it is that they do not
know they are doing so."

"Don't know what they are doing!" exclaimed Elsie.

"Oh, yes, they know what they are doing for themselves, but they can't
have the least notion of what they are doing for the flowers and
indeed for the whole world! Without plants there could be no life of
any kind on earth. It is the plants that produce life. Through them
come animals, and even men and women and little girls. The plants feed
on the earth and air, which men and animals cannot do. A man or a lamb
cannot eat the soil or live on air, but a plant lives by eating the
minerals and gases and water of the earth and air, and the man and
the lamb eat the plants, and so are able to live. Without the plants
we could not exist, and without the insects, which fertilize the
plants, so that they can grow, the plants themselves would soon die.
Don't you think now that what the bee did was quite an important
matter, even if it did seem so trivial?"

"Ye-yes," Elsie hesitated. She did not yet grasp the full depth of her
mother's words. They meant so much! "But," she continued, her bright
eyes eage