ifted off the cabbage leaf and was dancing
through the air, settling down now on a bright flower, and now on a
nodding blade of grass, then up and off again. He rejoiced gaily in his
freedom for a time, but soon came the longing to try his wings in the
upper sunshine.

Before attempting the unknown journey, however, he flew back to the
round, green cabbage-head on which he had lived so long. There were the
twenty, small, green caterpillars, still creeping slowly about and
filling themselves with cabbage-leaf. This was all they knew how to do,
and this they did faithfully. "Never mind, little caterpillars," said
the new butterfly as he hovered over them, "keep on at your work; the
cabbage leaf gives you food, and the crawling makes you strong. By and
by you, too, shall be butterflies and go forth free and glad into God's
great upper world."

Having said this in so low a tone of voice that you would not have heard
him had you been standing close by, he flew far away, so far that
neither you nor I could have followed him with our eyes. As for the
happy-faced, little, black-eyed woman, she did not even know that he had
been near her, for her eyes were fastened on her book, as usual. But the
small, green, caterpillars must have heard, for they went on crawling
and nibbling cabbage-leaves quite contentedly, and not one of them was
ever heard to complain of having to be a caterpillar, though
occasionally one and then another of them would lift his head, and I
doubt not he was thinking of the time when he, too, should become a
beautiful white butterfly.

_THE DISCONTENTED MILL WINDOW._

A tall flour mill once stood in the midst of a busy noisy town. Its
steep, slanting roof was far above any other roof in the place, and its
many windows looked out over the chimney tops, and into the back yards
and saw all that was going on in them.

Under the very eaves of this slanting roof was a little round window.
Because it was so high above the other windows, from it you could have
seen not only all that was being done in the busy city, but the broad,
green fields outside of the town, and, on a clear day, you could even
have caught a glimpse of the vast ocean which lay shining so
mysteriously beyond the end of land. It was because this glimpse of the
great ocean could be seen through the little round window that the
mill-owner brought many visitors up to the top story to see the
beautiful vision. Oftentimes the guests reache