every variety of
unnatural position. I never grew weary, either, of gathering stately
and graceful green ferns, and finding them all "cockled up," as the
phrase went, when I got home. I believe I made some experiments on a
horsechestnut blossom once; but as it is not to be found in my
Herbarium, I am inclined to think they were unsuccessful. How happy
children are with any new possession! I thought there never was any
thing quite equal to my new book. All the girls had them, with neat
marbled covers, and white paper within, and each one was determined to
make hers the best of the whole. When pasting day came, there was an
intense excitement. We all daubed our little fingers to our heart's
content, and our faces too, as to that. I remember perfectly the
sensation of smiling, after the paste stiffened. We spattered our
desks, and pasted the wrong side of the flowers, and stuck the leaves
together, and got every thing a little one-sided, and, in short,
became so worried and heated and vexed, that we did not hunt for any
more flowers for a long time after the first pasting day.

In the mean while my ideas had undergone a change. I had become much
more ambitious. A hew page brings flowers of a higher order, and,
beneath them, besides the common name, appears a sounding botanical
title; ay, still more, the class and order are written in full. Poor
things! How many of your species must have been pulled to pieces by
inexperienced hands, to ascertain the exact number of stamens, and
their relative positions! I feel, now, a tenderness for the shrinking,
delicate wild flowers, that makes me hesitate even to pick them from
their shady retreats; but _then_, such was my ardor for investigation,
the more I loved them, and the more beautiful they seemed, the more
eagerly I tore them to fragments. Let the ingenious student analyze
bits of brass wire, and reduce to its simple elements as much
gunpowder as he pleases, but I raise my voice against this wanton
destruction of rare and beautiful flowers. No chemical process can
ever restore _them_.

As I glance over this new page, I see a merry troop of little girls,
crowding around their kind teacher, trying to restrain their
superabundant spirits, and restless activity, till they may give them
free scope in the woods. Passing up the street, they are joined by
fresh recruits, who come dancing out of the houses, with baskets, and
trowels, and tin boxes, and delightfully mysterious suppers