THE DAISY. 13 



cause, while other flowers are still sleeping, 

 no sooner does the sun appear on the hori- 

 zon, than the daisy is awake. Who is there 

 that does not love the daisy, la belle Mar- 

 guerite of the French, the meadow-pearl, so 

 called from its pearly look among the grass ; 

 the bonnie gem of the Ayrshire ploughman, 

 that "wee modest crimson-tipped flower," 

 which is associated with all the sports of 

 childhood, and all the delights of home? 

 A thousand indefinable emotions are blend- 

 ed with this simple flower ; it recalls to mind 

 not only the race in the green meadow, or 

 beside the wood walk; the stringing of its 

 emerald-tinted stars, when the petals had 

 fallen off, and the butter-cups and prim- 

 roses, which often lured our steps into 

 the damp grass, or beside the streamlet's 

 brink ; but the home, the home, in which 

 oiu" young days passed. It might have been 

 a mansion or a cottage, but there our father 



