but also much, much happier. And round about, all was calm and peaceful.

But when Sunday's sun came up, the plant opened its bud, and it bore but a single one. When the cottage folks passed the little flower-garden, they all stopped and looked at the beautiful, fragrant blossom.

"It shall go with us to the house of God," said the wife, turning to her husband. He nodded, and then she broke off the flower. The wife looked at the husband, and he looked at her, and then their eyes rested on both children; then their eyes grew dim, but became immediately bright again, for the tears were not of sorrow, but of happiness.

When the organ's tones swelled and the people sang in the temple, the flower folded its petals, for it had fulfilled its mission; but on the waves of song its perfume floated upwards. And in the sweet fragrance lay a warm thanksgiving from the little seeddown.

Dow

MY KINGDOM

Robert Louis Stevenson

OWN by a shining water well
I found a very little dell,

No higher than my head.

The heather and the gorse about
In summer bloom were coming out,
Some yellow and some red.

I called the little pool a sea;
The little hills were big to me;
For I am very small.

I made a boat, I made a town,
I searched the caverns up and down,
And named them one and all.

And all about was mine, I said,
The little sparrows overhead,

The little minnows too.

This was the world and I was king; For me the bees came by to sing, For me the swallows flew.

I played there were no deeper seas
Nor any wider plains than these,
Nor other kings than me.

At last I heard my mother call,
Out from the house at evenfall,
To call me home to tea.

And I must rise and leave my dell,
And leave my dimpled water well,
And leave my heather blooms.
Alas! and as my home I neared,
How very big my nurse appeared,
How great and cool the rooms!

In the forest lawns I see

Little ring-plots fenced around, So that shrub and sapling tree Thrive in safe and happy ground;

And I wonder "Cannot I

Keep some little plots apart,

Open to the wind and sky,

For the growth of mind and heart??

- From GooD WORDS.