but one day a soft, sweet zephyr came
and gently released her, and she fluttered slowly down to the calm bosom
of the little brook, who had, alas! seen many flowers bloom and die.

Tenderly the stream bore it away to a grassy nook on its banks, and
there it placed the tiny leaf, alone in its quiet rest.

PARABLE EIGHTH.

THE AMBITIOUS WILD-FLOWER--AMBITION.

'Who'll buy my roses? they're lovely and fair,
They're Nature's own bloom, and are fed on fresh air.'

So sang a little girl, as she walked along a shady lane, carrying a
basket of those glorious flowers which she was taking to a friend as a
birthday gift; and so on she went, singing her song of Roses, sweet
Roses, little thinking that others were listening to her melody (besides
the birds), or that her simple words would raise angry feelings in the
very flowers themselves.

'Oh yes!' exclaimed a small Wild-flower--its name I will not tell; 'oh
yes!' she repeated, waiting until the singer was out of hearing; 'always
Roses, or Violets, or Lilies--no one ever composes songs about--_us_--we
are only common flowers.'

'Don't say so,' interposed Pimpernel, 'because that is not true. There
is a poem on a Daisy that will ever be remembered, and I have heard some
children sing a pretty one about Buttercups and Daisies, besides.'

'Oh, of course you uphold these song-makers, because your name has
appeared in print,' she interrupted, with a toss of her bonnie petals;
'but no one has ever noticed me.'

'Nonsense!' said Ragged Robin, who, having been of a wandering
disposition, had seen and heard a great deal in his time; 'why, there is
one poet who says,--

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its fragrance on the desert air."

Therefore, if you are not mentioned by name, you certainly must be
included among these unknowns who are born to blush unseen.'

'I don't want to be included among these "unknowns" then,' exclaimed the
Flower angrily. 'I am sure I am'--she hesitated a moment--'quite as
lovely as a Rose, or any other garden beauty;' but she could not help
hanging her head for very shame whilst uttering this piece of
self-conceit.

'Oh! oh! oh!' were the exclamations to be heard on all sides.

'So I am,' she persisted, going on now in sheer desperation, having
proceeded too far to retract. 'My petals are delicately fair, with just
a faint rosy blush, my pistils and stamens of a tender yellow, and my
form, if f