and the other flowers, trying to emulate fair
Lady Rose, held their heads so very high that they, of course, did not
hear the low, soft cry, "Oh, will no one give me shelter?" At last
there came an answer, "I will, gladly," in a shy and trembling tone,
as though fearing to be presumptuous, from a thick thorny bush which
helped to protect the more dainty beauties from the rough blasts of a
sometimes too boisterous wind; in consideration of which service the
flowers considered the briar as a good, useful sort of thing,
respectable enough in its common way, but not as an equal or
associate, you understand. With gratitude the forlorn butterfly rested
all night in the bosom of one of its simple white blossoms.

When night had gone and the bright sun came gliding up from the east,
calling on Nature to awake, the flowers raised their heads in all the
pride of renewed beauty and saluted one another. Where was the forlorn
butterfly? Ah! where? They saw it no more; but over the white blossom
where it had rested there hovered a tiny fairy in shining, changing
sheen, her wand sparkling with dewdrops. She looked down on the
flowers with gentle, reproachful eye, while they bent low in wonder
and admiration.

"Who is it?" they asked. "How beautiful! how lovely!"

The fairy heard them with a smile, and said, "Fair flowers, I _was_ a
shabby butterfly; what I _am_, you see. I came to you poor and weary;
and because I was poor and weary you shut me out from your hearts."

The pansy and the wall-flower bent their heads in sorrow, and Lady
Rose blushed with shame.

"If I had only known!" muttered the peony; "but who would have thought
it?"

"Who indeed?" laughed the fairy; "but learn, proud peony, that he who
thinks always of self loses much of life's sweetness--far more than he
ever suspects; for goodness is as the dew of the heart, and yieldeth
refreshment and happiness, even if it win no other recompense. But it
is meet that it should be rewarded. Behold, all of you!" and the fairy
touched with her wand the white blossom on which she had rested,
saying, "For thy sweetness be thou loved for ever!" At these words a
thrill of happiness stirred the sap of the rough, neglected briar, and
a soft, lovely blush suffused the petals of its flowers, and from its
green leaves came forth an exquisite odor, perfuming the whole garden
and eclipsing the other flowers in their pride.

Then the fairy rose in the air, and hovering over her resting-