lders and hang down to the waist,
and at last a wreath to wear about the head; so that they looked quite
splendid in their garlands of green stems and golden flowers. But the
eldest among them gathered carefully the faded flowers, on the stem of
which were grouped together the seeds, in the form of a white, feathery
coronal.

These loose, airy wool-flowers are very beautiful, and look like fine,
snowy feathers or down. The children held them to their mouths and tried
to blow away the whole coronal with one puff of the breath. They had
been told by their grandmothers that whoever did so would be sure to
have new clothes before the end of the year. The despised flower was by
this raised to the position of a prophet, or foreteller of events.

"Do you see," said the sunbeam, "do you see the beauty of these flowers?
Do you see their powers of giving pleasure?"

"Yes, to children," said the apple bough.

By and by an old woman came into the field and, with a blunt knife
without a handle, began to dig round the roots of some of the dandelion
plants and pull them up. With some she intended to make tea for herself,
but the rest she was going to sell to the chemist and obtain money.

"But beauty is of higher value than all this," said the apple-tree
branch; "only the chosen ones can be admitted into the realms of the
beautiful. There is a difference between plants, just as there is a
difference between men."

Then the sunbeam spoke of the boundless love of God as seen in creation
and over all that lives, and of the equal distribution of His gifts,
both in time and in eternity.

"That is your opinion," said the apple bough.

Then some people came into the room and among them the young
countess--the lady who had placed the apple bough in the transparent
vase, so pleasantly beneath the rays of sunlight. She carried in her
hand something that seemed like a flower. The object was hidden by two
or three great leaves which covered it like a shield so that no draft or
gust of wind could injure it, and it was carried more carefully than the
apple branch had ever been.

Very cautiously the large leaves were removed, and there appeared the
feathery seed crown of the despised yellow dandelion. This was what the
lady had so carefully plucked and carried home so safely covered, so
that not one of the delicate feathery arrows of which its mistlike shape
was so lightly formed should flutter away. She now drew it forth quite
uninjured