Page 532 - Child's own book

on the beautiful ornamental flowers in the garden, and therefore
she kept growing hour by hour. One morning she appeared
with her little dazzling white leaves quite unfolded, like so
many beams round (he tiny yellow sun in the middle. She
never thought that there was no one to see her here in the
grass, and that she was a poor despised flower. No ! she felt
quite pleased, as she turned towards the warm eun, and looked
up at it, and listened to the lark singing high above in the air.
The little daisy was as happy as if it had been a holiday,
and yet it was only a Monday. All the children were at school;
and while they sat on their forms and learned something, she
sat on her little green stem, and she, too, learned from the
warm sun, and from all that surrounded her, how infinite is the
goodness of God ; and she was delighted that the little lark
should sing so plainly and so beautifully what she but inwardly'
felt. And the daisy looked up with a sort of respect to the
happy bird who could warble and fly, yet without being afflicted
that she herself could do neither. “ I can see, and I can hear/'
thought she ; “ the sun shines upon me, and the wind kisses
me. Oh, how richly have I been gifted !’’
Inside the palings stood a number of stiff, proud flowers.
The less perfume they had to boast of, the more they flaunted.
The peonies puffed themselves up, in order to be larger than
the roses ; but si/e is Dot everything 1 The tulips possessed
all the most gorgeous colours, and they knew this so well that
they stood as straight us arrows, in order to bo admired
the better. They took no notice of the little daisy outside;
but she only looked the more at them and thought, “ How
rich and how beautiful they are ! The pretty' bird will, of
course, fly down and visit them. Thank Heaven that I stand
near enough to contemplate their magnificence.” And just as
she was thinking so, “ Twit! ” sang the lark, flying down, but