llected
prisms, and tried, in scattering the rays, to learn the properties of
each several pencil of light. I grew very wise and learned, but never
came nearer the secret I was searching for,--why it was that the Violet,
lying so near the Dandelion, should choose and find such a different
dress to wear. It was not the rarer flowers that I brought home, at
first. My hands were filled with Dandelions and Buttercups. The
Saint-John's-Wort delighted me, and even the gaudy Sunflower. I trained
the vines which had been drooping round our old house,--the gray
time-worn house; the "natural-colored house," the neighbors called it. I
thought of the blind boy who fancied the sound of the trumpet must be
scarlet, as I trained up the brilliant scarlet trumpet-flower which my
sister had planted long ago.

So the summer passed away. My companions and neighbors did not wonder
much, that, after studying so many books, I should begin to study
flowers and botany. And November came. My occupation was not yet taken
away, for Golden-Rod and the Asters gleamed along the dusty roadside,
and still underneath the Maples there lay a sunny glow from the yellow
leaves not yet withered beneath them.

One day I received a summons from our overseer, Mr. Clarkson, to visit
him in the evening. I went, a little disturbed, lest he might have some
complaint to make of the engrossing nature of my present occupations.
This I was almost led to believe, from the way in which he began to
speak to me. His perorations, to be sure, were apt to be far wide of his
subject; and this time, as usual, I could allow him two or three
minutes' talk before it became necessary for me to give him my
attention.

At last it came out. I was wanted to go up to Boston about a marvellous
piece of carpet which had appeared from our mills. It had lain in the
warehouse some time, had at last been taken to Boston, and a large
portion of it had been sold, the pattern being a favorite one. But
suddenly there had been a change. In opening one of the rolls and
spreading it broadly in the show-room of Messrs. Gobelin's warehouse, it
had appeared the most wonderful carpet that ever was known. A real
sunlight gleamed over the leaves and flowers, seeming to flicker and
dance among them as on a broad meadow. It shed a radiance which paled
the light that struggled down between the brick walls through the high
windows. It had been subject of such wonder that Messrs. Gobelin had
been obliged t