his own
little span was drawing near its close.

Then he felt glad that he had been so happy, and had not wasted his life.
"It has been very short," said he to himself; "but it has been very
pleasant, and I think I have made the best use of it. I have drunk in
the sunshine, I have lain on the soft, warm air, I have played merry
games in the waving grass, I have tasted the juice of the sweet green
leaves. I have done what I could. I have spread my wings, I have sung
my song. Now I will thank God for the sunny days that are passed, and
die."

Saying which, he crawled under a brown leaf, and met his fate in the way
that all brave grasshoppers should; and a little bird that was passing by
picked him up tenderly and buried him.

Now when the foolish ant saw this, she was greatly puffed up with
Pharisaical conceit. "How thankful I ought to be," said she, "that I am
industrious and prudent, and not like this poor grasshopper. While he
was flitting about from flower to flower, enjoying himself, I was hard at
work, putting by against the winter. Now he is dead, while I am about to
make myself cosy in my warm home, and eat all the good things that I have
been saving up."

But, as she spoke, the gardener came along with his spade, and levelled
the hill where she dwelt to the ground, and left her lying dead amidst
the ruins.

Then the same kind little bird that had buried the grasshopper came and
picked her out and buried her also; and afterwards he composed and sang a
song, the burthen of which was, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may." It
was a very pretty song, and a very wise song, and a man who lived in
those days, and to whom the birds, loving him and feeling that he was
almost one of themselves, had taught their language, fortunately
overheard it and wrote it down, so that all may read it to this day.

Unhappily for us, however, Fate is a harsh governess, who has no sympathy
with our desire for rosebuds. "Don't stop to pick flowers now, my dear,"
she cries, in her sharp, cross tones, as she seizes our arm and jerks us
back into the roadway; "we haven't time to-day. We will come back again
to-morrow, and you shall pick them then."

And we have to follow her, knowing, if we are experienced children, that
the chances are that we shall never come that way to-morrow; or that, if
we do, the roses will be dead.

Fate would not hear of our having a houseboat that summer,--which was an
exceptionally fine summer,--but