rbs," said the apple branch; "there is really a
difference between them and such as I am. How unhappy they must be if
they can feel as those in my position do! There is a difference indeed,
and so there ought to be, or we should all be equals."

And the apple branch looked with a sort of pity upon them, especially on
a certain little flower that is found in fields and in ditches. No one
bound these flowers together in a nosegay, they were too common,--they
were even known to grow between the paving stones, shooting up
everywhere like bad weeds,--and they bore the very ugly name of "dog
flowers," or "dandelions."

"Poor despised plants," said the apple bough, "it is not your fault that
you are so ugly and that you have such an ugly name, but it is with
plants as with men--there must be a difference."

"A difference!" cried the sunbeam as he kissed the blooming apple branch
and then kissed the yellow dandelion out in the fields. All were
brothers, and the sunbeam kissed them--the poor flowers as well as the
rich.

The apple bough had never thought of the boundless love of God which
extends over all the works of creation, over everything which lives and
moves and has its being in Him. He had never thought of the good and
beautiful which are so often hidden, but can never remain forgotten by
Him, not only among the lower creation, but also among men. The sunbeam,
the ray of light, knew better.

"You do not see very far nor very clearly," he said to the apple branch.
"Which is the despised plant you so specially pity?"

"The dandelion," he replied. "No one ever places it in a nosegay; it is
trodden under foot, there are so many of them; and when they run to seed
they have flowers like wool, which fly away in little pieces over the
roads and cling to the dresses of the people; they are only weeds--but
of course there must be weeds. Oh, I am really very thankful that I was
not made like one of these flowers."

There came presently across the fields a whole group of children, the
youngest of whom was so small that he had to be carried by the others;
and when he was seated on the grass, among the yellow flowers, he
laughed aloud with joy, kicked out his little legs, rolled about,
plucked the yellow flowers and kissed them in childlike innocence.

The elder children broke off the flowers with long stems, bent the
stalks one round the other to form links, and made first a chain for the
neck, then one to go across the shou