darted at Miss Mary, seizing her by the arm. To make her
do penance she did not put her in the dark closet this time, but posted
her underneath a great chestnut tree, in the shade of a big Japanese
umbrella.

[Illustration]

There Miss Mary sits, surprised and astonished, and thinks it all over.
Her flower in her hand, with the stripes of the umbrella making rays
around her, she looked like some queer little foreign idol.

[Illustration: THE LITTLE PENITENT, PERFECTLY STILL BENEATH HER SHINING
FRAME, LOOKS AROUND HER AT THE SKY AND THE EARTH. THEY ARE LARGE, THE
EARTH AND SKY, AND CAN AMUSE A LITTLE GIRL FOR A WHILE. BUT THE
HYDRANGEA INTERESTS HER MORE THAN ANYTHING.

_Printed in France_]

Her nurse said: "Mary, I forbid you to carry that flower in your mouth.
If you disobey me your little dog Toto will eat your ears up for
you"--with which warning she departed.

The little penitent, perfectly still beneath her shining frame, looks
around her at the sky and the earth. They are large, the earth and sky,
and can amuse a little girl for a while. But the hortensia flower
interests her more than anything. She reflects: "A flower should smell
good." And she raises nearer to her nose the beautiful rosy, blue
tempered ball. She tries to smell it but can smell nothing. She is not
clever at smelling perfumes. Not so very, very long ago she used to
breathe over the roses instead of sniffing them in. We must not laugh at
her for that: one can't learn everything at once. Besides, she might
have had, like her mother, a very subtle sense of smell that could smell
nothing. The flower of the hortensia has no odor. That is why one grows
tired of it, in spite of its beauty. But Miss Mary thinks: "This flower
is made of sugar, maybe." With that she opens her mouth wide, and starts
to raise the flower to her lips.

[Illustration]

A cry recalls her. Yap!

It is the little dog Toto, who, darting round a border of geraniums,
comes and sets himself, his ears straight up, before Miss Mary and looks
at her warningly with his round bright eyes.

PAN PIPES

Three children of the same village, Peter, James and John, are standing
up looking off at something. Ranged side by side they form together the
outline of a Pan Pipes with three reeds. Peter, at the left, is a big
boy; John, at the right, is small; James, between the two, may consider
himself big or little, according as he regards his neighbor on the left
or right. It is