to learn. They are not old and they are "only one times one,"
not "seven times one," which are seven.

Stanza 3. She has seen the moon when it was full and bright and gave a
wondrous light, but now it is only a pale crescent in the sky and its
light is failing. Certainly the moon is failing and not like the child
improving each day.

Stanza 4. Occasionally the child has done wrong and been punished, and
perhaps the moon has done something wrong way up there in heaven so that
God has hidden its face. If that is true she hopes soon God will forgive
the poor moon and allow it to shine once more with its silver light.

Stanza 5. Isn't "velvet bee" a happy expression? Then the bee gathers
the yellow pollen from the flowers, mixes and shapes it into little
pellets and fastens them in golden balls on its thighs to carry into the
hive where it will serve as "bee bread" to feed the young bees. In the
wet places grow the marsh marigolds, or cowslips as they are sometimes
called, bright golden flowers like the buttercups. To the bee and the
cowslips the little child joyfully cries: "Give me your golden honey to
hold, for I am seven years old and know what to do with it."

Stanza 6. The columbine is the graceful little flower we so often hear
called honeysuckle. Five deep curved nectar-bearing tubes project
backward from the flower itself. By opening the blossom in the right way
the child of fanciful ideas may see shapes that remind her of turtle
doves.

The cuckoo-pint (by the way, the _i_ is short as in _pit_) does not grow
in the United States. It has spotted leaves, large and triangular, and
the "bell" is an upright green cup in which stands a tall column, the
"clapper." It is called cuckoo-pint because it blossoms about the time
the cuckoo returns to England. Our nearest approach to the flower is the
"Jack-in-the-Pulpit" or Indian Turnip.

It is perfectly safe for the columbine to unfold its wrapper and the
cuckoo-pint to toll its bell in the presence of a maiden so old. She
will not destroy them.

Stanza 7. In the United States we have no wild linnet, though we
sometimes hear song-birds called by that name. The English linnet is a
little sparrow with striped back and a purple crown and breast. He
resembles our purple finch and our redpoll. He is one of the famous
songsters of the English lanes and fields.

No young lady of seven would be so thoughtless as to steal away the
young linnets, so the old bird may freely p