s,' she said, 'and she is
no more to be desired than I am.'

"'I should be a poor lover were I not willing to suffer for the one I
love,' replied the nightingale as he came closer and sang to me even in
his pain.

"'I will always love you,' he said; 'I know you are not to blame for
the thorns you wear, and that my love for you brought this upon you. I
will never leave you.' And he sang to me all through the night, and in
the morning a deep, red Rose bloomed where the nightingale's bleeding
foot had rested, and the Thorn Bush was more angry than ever when she
beheld its beauty.

"'You shall never be free,' she said to me; 'every Rose shall wear a
thorn.'

"The nightingale still sings to me and never fails to tell me of his
undying love."

"That is a very pretty story," said Martha as the Rose finished, "and I
am glad to know about that Thorn, for I have wondered many times why a
flower so beautiful as you had that sharp point under your soft leaves."

"Martha! Martha!" some one called from the doorway, and Martha jumped
up.

"Come back to-morrow and hear my story," said the Tiger Lily; "and
mine," said the Tulip; "and mine," called out the Jonquil.

Martha promised that she would and ran toward the house.

The next day as soon as Martha found herself alone she ran into the
garden, for she was curious to hear the promised stories.

The Jonquil spoke first. "My story," it said, with dignity, "will be
historical. I am a descendant from the great Narcissus family, and the
Narcissus, as you know, is a very beautiful flower; it grows in wild
profusion among the stony places along the great Mediterranean and
eastward to China. All that you may have heard, but do you know why
Narcissus loves to be near the water?"

Martha said she did not.

"I will tell you," replied the Jonquil. "Ages and ages ago Narcissus
was the son of a river god. He was extremely vain of his extraordinary
beauty, which he beheld for the first time in the water. He sought out
all the pools in the woods and would spend hours gazing at his
reflection, and at last he fell in love with his own image.

"Narcissus could neither eat nor sleep, so fascinated did he become
with his reflection. He would put his lips near to the water to kiss
the lips he saw, and plunge his arms into it to embrace the form he
loved, which, of course, fled at his touch, and then returned after a
moment to mock him.

"'Why cannot you love me?' he would say t