n one could aspire to. But none of them got into a flowerpot, and
still less into a gentleman's buttonhole.

They lived on light and air, and drank sunshine in the day and dew at
night. They received visits from bee and hornet, who came to look for
the honey in the flower, and who took the honey and left the flower.

"The good-for-nothing fellows," said the thistle bush. "I would pierce
them if I could!"

The flowers drooped and faded, but new ones always came.

"You come as if you had been sent," said the thistle bush to them. "I am
expecting every moment to be taken over the fence."

A couple of harmless daisies and a huge, thin plant of canary grass
listened to this with the deepest respect, believing all they heard. The
old donkey, that had to pull the milk cart, cast longing looks toward
the blooming thistle and tried to reach it, but his tether was too
short. And the thistle bush thought and thought, so much and so long,
of the Scotch thistle--to whom it believed itself related--that at last
it fancied it had come from Scotland and that its parents had grown into
the Scottish arms.

It was a great thought, but a great thistle may well have great
thoughts.

"Sometimes one is of noble race even if one does not know it," said the
nettle growing close by--it had a kind of presentiment that it might be
turned into muslin, if properly treated.

The summer passed, and the autumn passed; the leaves fell from the
trees; the flowers came with stronger colors and less perfume; the
gardener's lad sang on the other side of the fence:

"Up the hill and down the hill,
That's the way of the world still."

The young pine trees in the wood began to feel a longing for Christmas,
though Christmas was still a long way off.

"Here I am still," said the thistle. "It seems that I am quite
forgotten, and yet it was I who made the match. They were engaged, and
now they are married--the wedding was a week ago. I do not make a
single step forward, for I cannot."

Some weeks passed. The thistle had its last, solitary flower, which was
large and full and growing down near the root. The wind blew coldly over
it, the color faded, and all its glory disappeared, leaving only the cup
of the flower, now grown to be as large as the flower of an artichoke
and glistening like a silvered sunflower.

The young couple, who were now man and wife, came along the garden path,
and as they passed near the fence, the bride,