aked him merrily with their
morning songs, he arose and went out into the green meadow.

And he begged flour of the primrose, and sugar of the violet, and butter
of the buttercup. He shook dewdrops from the cowslip into the cup of the
harebell, spread out a large lime-leaf, set his breakfast upon it, and
feasted daintily. And he invited a humming-bee and a gay butterfly to
partake of his feast, but his favorite guest was a blue dragon-fly.

The bee murmured a good deal about his riches, and the butterfly told
his adventures. Such talk delighted the child, and his breakfast was the
sweeter to him, and the sunshine on leaf and flower seemed more bright
and cheering.

But when the bee had flown off to beg from flower to flower, and the
butterfly had fluttered away to his play-fellows, the dragon-fly still
remained, poised on a blade of grass. Her slender and burnished body,
more brightly and deeply blue than the deep blue sky, glistened in the
sunbeam. Her net-like wings laughed at the flowers because they could
not fly, but must stand still and abide the wind and rain.

The dragon-fly sipped a little of the child's clear dewdrops and blue
violet honey, and then whispered her winged words. Such stories as the
dragon-fly did tell! And as the child sat motionless with his blue
eyes shut, and his head rested on his hands, she thought he had fallen
asleep; so she poised her double wings and flew into the rustling wood.

But the child had only sunk into a dream of delight and was wishing he
were a sunbeam or a moonbeam; and he would have been glad to hear more
and more, and forever.

But at last as all was still, he opened his eyes and looked around for
his dear guest, but she was flown far away. He could not bear to sit
there any longer alone, and he rose and went to the gurgling brook. It
gushed and rolled so merrily, and tumbled so wildly along as it hurried
to throw itself head-over-heels into the river, just as if the great
massy rock out of which it sprang were close behind it, and could only
be escaped by a breakneck leap.

Then the child began to talk to the little waves and asked them whence
they came. They would not stay to give him an answer, but danced away
one over another; till at last, that the sweet child might not be
grieved, a water-drop stopped behind a piece of rock.

"A long time ago," said the water-drop, "I lived with my countless
sisters in the great Ocean, in peace and unity. We had all sorts of