﻿166 PICTORIAL MISCELLANY 



liked the soft splashing music which they made, mingled, as it was, 

 with the gay songs of the birds, which were now quite wide awake 

 and happy, flying from tree" to tree, and bidding good-morning to all 

 their little feathered neighbors. So little Frank sat quite content- 

 edly under the tree for a short time, and then his father and mother 



V 



came, and after his father had unlocked the boat and helped his 

 wife and Frank to get in, the boat was pushed from the shore, and 

 they glided off into the deep water. After Mr. Merrill had rowed 

 them about in the middle of the pond for some time, Frank's mother 

 said, " Now let us get some lilies, and then go home, before the hot 

 sun begins to pour down upon us." So they went to the further end 

 of the pond, where there were a great quantity of lilies growing. 



They looked very beautiful, with their pure white corollas and 

 bright golden stamens, looking like stars dropped just from the sky 

 among the broad dark green leaves. Little Frank was delighted. 

 He bent over the side of the boat, plucking the beautiful flowers 

 and inhaling their sweet breath. 



" Father," said he, " when the pond was so very high, last week, 

 I noticed that the lilies were here, on the top of the water, and now 

 that the pond is at least a foot lower, they are in just the same 

 place. If they are only tall enough to come to the top of the water 

 ?ioiv, I should think when it was so much higher they would have 

 been covered with water." 



" And so they would, my son, but that the Creator of all things 

 has, in his all-seeing wisdom, provided a way by which they are 

 enabled to accommodate themselves to all variations of the changing 

 element in which they grow. Their stems are spiral, like a cork- 

 screw, so that when the tide is high they can stretch up, and when 

 low, they settle down. I can give you a very good example of what 

 I mean in one of your mother's long curls ; you see, when I take 

 hold at the end and pull, it stretches out much longer, and then I 

 can coil it up till it is hardly an inch long. Do you understand?" 



" Yes, my dear father, and thank you for telling me. But see 

 that beautiful lily just beyond the end of the boat, will you get 

 it for me ? " 



"Yes, Frank; but as you see, now that you have it, it is no 

 better than the others. You must learn, my boy, not to always 

 desire that wnich is 'a little beyond' what you already have." 



