t was quite like a kindergarten. But the principal pupil was
restless and troublesome.

"You are never still," said the man, "you have an idle mind and
wandering thoughts."

"No!" said the sprite, shaking his head. "It is true my mind is not on
my lessons. But my thoughts do not wander at all. They always follow
yours."

Then the man stopped talking, and the other sprites laughed behind their
hands. But the one who had been reproved went on drawing pictures in the
back of his botany book. The face in the pictures was always the same,
but none of them seemed to satisfy him, for he always rubbed them out
and began over again.

After several weeks of hard work the master thought his pupil must have
learned something, so he gave him a holiday, and asked him what he would
like to do.

"Go with you," he answered, "when you take her your new stories."

So they went together, and the lady complimented the writer on his
success as an educator.

"Your pupil does you credit," said she, "he talks nicely about botany
and deportment. But I am a little troubled to see him looking so pale.
Perhaps you have been too severe with him. I must take him out in the
garden with me every day to play a while."

"You have a kind heart," said the man, "and I hope he will appreciate
it."

This agreeable and amicable life continued for some weeks, and everybody
was glad that affairs had arranged themselves. But one day the lady
brought a new complaint.

"He is a strange little creature, and he has begun to annoy me in the
most extraordinary way." "That is bad," said the man. "What does he
do now?"

"Oh, nothing," she answered, "and that is just the trouble. When I want
to talk about you, he refuses, and says he does not like you as much as
he used to. When I propose to play a game, he says he is tired and would
rather sit under a tree and hear stories. When I tell them he says they
do not suit him, they all end happily, and that is stupid. He is very
perverse. But he clings to me like a bur. He is always teasing me to
tell him the name of every flower in my garden and given him one of
every kind."

"Is he rude about it?"

"Not exactly rude, but he is all the more annoying because he is so
polite, and I always feel that he wants something different."

"He must not do that," said the man. "He must learn to want what you
wish."

"But how can he learn what I wish? I do not always know that myself."

"It may be difficult," said