y, glittering,
fragrant, musical as a morn in Eden. For a while I stood still, in a
kind of enchantment. Venturing, at length, a few steps forward,
gazing eagerly from side to side, I was suddenly arrested by the most
marvellously beautiful object my eyes had ever seen,--no other than
the little Button-Rose of our story! So small, so perfect! It filled
my infant sense with its loveliness. It grew in a very pretty china
vase, as if more precious than the other flowers. Several blossoms
were fully expanded, and many tiny buds were showing their crimson
tips. As I stood lost in rapture over this little miracle of beauty, a
humming-bird, the smallest of its fairy tribe, darted into sight, and
hung for an instant, its ruby crest and green and golden plumage
flashing in the sun, over my new-found treasure. Were it not that the
emotions of a few such moments are stamped indelibly on the memory, we
should have no conception in maturer life of the intenseness of
childish enjoyment. Oh for one drop of that fresh morning dew, that
pure nectar of life, in which I then bathed with an unconscious bliss!
Methinks I would give many days of sober, thoughtful, _rational_
enjoyment for one hour of the eager rapture which thrilled my being as
I stood in that enchanted garden, gazing upon my little rose, and that
gay creature of the elements, that winged blossom, that living
fragment of a rainbow, that glanced and quivered and murmured over it.

But, dear as the Button-Rose is to my memory, I should hardly think of
obtruding it on the notice of others, were it not for a little tale of
human interest connected with it. While I yet stood motionless in the
ecstasy of my first wonder, a young man and woman entered the garden,
chatting and laughing in a very lively manner. The lady was my Aunt
Caroline, then in the fresh bloom of seventeen; the young man I had
never seen before. Seeing me standing alone in the walk, my aunt
called me; but as I shrunk away shy and blushing at sight of the
stranger, she came forward and took hold of my hand.

"This is our little Katy, Cousin Harry," said she, leading me towards
him.

"Our little Katy's most obedient!" replied he, taking off his
broad-brimmed straw hat, and making a flourishing bow nearly to the
ground.

"Don't be afraid of him, Katy dear; he's nobody," said my aunt,
laughing.

At these encouraging words I glanced up at the merry pair, and thought
them almost as pretty as the rose and hummi