The next morning, when he awoke, the old man was gone. He had taken with
him the golden cup. And the sentinel was also gone, none knew whither.
Perhaps the old man had turned his golden cup into a golden key.

THE WATER-LILY

My father and mother were gone out for the day, and had left me charge
of the children. It was very hot, and they kept up a continual fidget. I
bore it patiently for some time, for children will be restless in hot
weather, but at length I requested that they would get something to do.

"Why don't you work, or paint, or read, Hatty?" I demanded of my little
sister.

"I'm tired of always grounding those swans," said Harriet, "and my
crochet is so difficult; I seem to do it quite right, and yet it comes
wrong."

"Then why don't you write your diary?"

"Oh, because Charlie won't write his."

"A very bad reason; his not writing leaves you the more to say; besides,
I thought you promised mamma you would persevere if she would give you a
book."

"And so we did for a long time," said Charlie; "why, I wrote pages and
pages of mine. Look here!"

So saying, he produced a copy-book with a marbled cover, and showed me
that it was about half-full of writing in large text.

"If you wrote all that yourself, I should think you might write more."

"Oh, but I am so tired of it, and besides, this is such a very hot day."

"I know that, and to have you leaning on my knee makes me no cooler; but
I have something for you to do just now, which I think you will like."

"Oh, what is it, sister? May we both do it?"

"Yes, if you like. You may go into the field to gardener, and ask him to
get me a water-lily out of the stream; I want one to finish my sketch
with."

"You really do want one? you are not pretending, just to give us
something to do?"

"No, I really want one; you see these in the glass begin to wither."'

"Make haste then, Hatty. Sister, you shall have the very best lily we
can find."

Thereupon they ran off, leaving me to inspect the diary. Its first page
was garnished with the resemblance of a large swan with curly wings;
from his beak proceeded the owner's name in full, and underneath were
his lucubrations. The first few pages ran as follows:

"_Wednesday._ To-day mamma said, as all the others were writing diaries,
I might do one too if I liked, so I said I should, and I shall write it
every day till I am grown up. I did a long division sum, a very hard
one. We dined early to-d