14 THE DAISY. 



^vatchcd over us, and there our mother 

 smiled upon us ; and over its blessed thresh- 

 old, our brothers and our sisters went and 

 came, and we too passed in and out, when 

 roses blossomed beside the open door, or the 

 snow lay cold and white upon the ground. 

 The daisy is the flower which of all others, 

 calls up such wayward fancies : it is among 

 flowers, what the cuckoo is among birds, and 

 he who hears the one, or sees the other in 

 a distant land, might break his heart in long- 

 ing for all the hopes and joys, the comforts 

 and the virtues which are comprised in that 

 one word — home. The daisy, too, is the 

 meekest looking of flowers ; it grows in mead 

 or glade, on commons, or broken ground 

 rough with stones and pebbles, on which few 

 other plants will vegetate. Where the wind 

 has deposited a scanty supply of earth, 

 blown up from the dusty road, or swept 

 from out tlic quarry, there the daisy will 



