rly turned on her mother's face, "we don't eat the buttercup,
mamma, do we?"

"No, sweetie, but we do eat very gladly a part of it, and that is the
part that the bee visited the flower for, and which he took away as
his fee for marrying the two. Can you guess what it is?"

The idea of a bee performing a marriage between flowers and taking a
fee for it was a little too much for Elsie, and when it was added that
she and her mother ate this fee such a look of amazement came into her
sweet face that her mother could not help smiling broadly.

"It is the honey, little girlie," she said. "The bee takes the honey
from the flower and carries it home to the hive, where he stores it up
until he has a great mass of it, and then the bee-man gets it and
sells it to the grocer, who sells it to us."

"W-e-l-l!" said Elsie slowly, "if that isn't strange!" She sat a
moment thinking of this miracle, her mother watching her lovingly and
considering what she ought to say next, for she had a great secret to
tell her little daughter, a secret so great and important that much
wise thought was required to study out just how to make it plain to a
girl as young as Elsie. Besides, she was interested to know what Elsie
herself would say next, for she was bringing her up to think
logically, so that she might know always how to ask the right question
at the right time, instead of the wrong one. And she was very much
pleased when Elsie, instead of putting the last question first, as
some little girls would have done, put the right one first by saying:

"But, mamma, how _can_ flowers marry! And how can a bee possibly marry
them?"

This was the right question to ask first, even if it was a kind of
double-headed one, because this marriage was the first of the wonders
that had amazed her, and the answer to it would lead logically to the
fee and the honey eaten by people, and these questions would be easier
to make plain after the first one was answered.

III

THE HUSBANDS AND WIVES OF PLANTS

Mrs. Edson drew a long breath because she knew the time had arrived
when, for her little daughter's sake, she must give her the
information which would mark her growth from girlhood into young
womanhood, and the fact disturbed her, for she did not want to lose
her little girl, even in exchange for the lovely young lady whom she
knew would take that dear little girl's place. But it must be done,
and, thankful that she had studied the subject enough