ized cries, and the little girl could tell nothing.

"It is that odious Poppy who is the cause of all this!" said the
flowers one to another (little Carie was indeed playing in her
immediate vicinity when she was seized with that dreadful distress),
"she has poisoned her." And their suspicions were confirmed when one
of the servants came running into the garden, and seizing hold of
the Poppy, stripped off every one of her bright scarlet petals, and
gathering them up, returned quickly to the house.

"You poor thing!" said the Elder, as the Poppy, so rudely handled,
bent down her dishonoured head to the ground; but not one of the
other flowers addressed to her a single word.

Through the long day she lay there--the Poppy--on the earth, trying
to forget what had happened; for she did not know but their words
were true, and she was the cause of the little girl's suffering--she
would so gladly have soothed her pain. The other flowers thought she
was dead, and the Poppy herself believed that she should never see
the light of another morning; but just before the day was gone, the
lady walked again into the garden accompanied by her husband;
and--what do you suppose the other flowers thought?--without
noticing one of them, the lady walked directly to the Poppy, lifted
her head from the ground, and leaned it against the frame which
supported the proud Carnation, and then, with her white hands,
replaced the loosened earth about her half uptorn roots.

"Oh, I hope it will not die!" she said to her husband, "I should
rather lose anything else in the garden, for I don't know but it
saved dear little Carie's life! She had a dreadful headache, and
nothing afforded her the least relief, till we bruised the leaves of
the Poppy, and bound them on her temples, and then she became quiet,
and fell into a gentle sleep. Oh, I hope it will live!"

Don't you think the Poppy did live, and was proud and happy enough?
Do you think she was ever afterwards ashamed of her little green
cap, or her ragged scarlet leaves? And do you think the other
flowers ever laughed at her again, or were ashamed of her
acquaintance?

When the summer had passed away, and the bright blossoms one by one
withered and died before the autumn's cool breath, the Poppy
cheerfully scattered her little seeds on the earth, and laid herself
down to die; for she knew that when another spring should come, and
her children should shoot up from the ground, they would be nurtur