ly exclaimed, after a long
silence.

"Why, Beth, flowers are very beautiful."

"Yes, but they last so short a time. I'd rather be less beautiful, and
live longer. What's your favourite flower, papa?"

She had stopped weeding for the moment, but still sat on the mat,
looking up at him. Captain Caldwell clipped a little more, then
stopped too, and looked down at her.

"I don't get a separate pleasure from any particular flower, Beth;
they all delight me," he answered.

Beth pondered upon this for a little, then she asked, "Do you know
which I like best? Hot primroses." Captain Caldwell raised his
eyebrows interrogatively. "When you pick them in the sun, and put them
against your cheek, they're all warm, you know," Beth explained; "and
then they _are_ good! And fuchsias are good too, but it isn't the same
good. You know that one in the sitting-room window, white outside and
salmon-coloured inside, and such a nice shape--the flowers--and the
way they hang down; you have to lift them to look into them. When I
look at them long, they make me feel--oh--feel, you know--feel that I
could take the whole plant in my arms and hug it. But fuchsias don't
scent sweet like hot primroses."

"And therefore they are not so good?" her father suggested, greatly
interested in the child's attempt to express herself. "They say that
the scent is the soul of the flower."

"The scent is the soul of the flower," Beth repeated several times;
then heaved a deep sigh of satisfaction. "I want to sing it," she
said. "I always want to sing things like that."

"What other 'things like that' do you know, Beth?"

"The song of the sea in the shell,
The swish of the grass in the breeze,
The sound of a far-away bell,
The whispering leaves on the trees,"

Beth burst out instantly.

"Who taught you that, Beth?" her father asked.

"Oh, no one taught me, papa," she answered. "It just came to me--like
this, you know. I used to listen to the sea in that shell in the
sitting-room, and I tried and tried to find a name for the sound, and
all at once _song_ came into my head--_The song of the sea in the
shell_. Then I was lying out here on the grass when it was long,
before you cut it to make hay, and you came out and said, 'There's a
stiff breeze blowing.' And it blew hard and then stopped, and then it
came again; and every time it came the grass went--swish-h-h! _The
swish of the grass in the breeze._ Then you know that bell th