96 POOR ROBIN'S PLANTAIN 



I looked about to see what he was talking to, 

 for often he says a few words to flowers, although 

 he knows that they can never answer him. A 

 tall flower stood close by the path and looked to 

 me very like a Daisy, only it was not pure white, 

 but a pale violet color. 



" Let me present Poor Robin's Plantain," 

 Tommy said, and he made a bow. 



I made a curtsey, keeping my back very straight. 



" Have you met before ? " Tommy asked. 



" This is the first time," I answered. 



" He's a friend of Wild Geranium," Tommy 

 said. 



" Then we shall see a great deal of him," I said. 



We both laughed then, for we were acting just 

 as we do in dancing-school, only there was no one 

 to see but the flower that looked like a Daisy. 



" It isn't really like a Daisy," I said when we 

 were serious again. " See the woolly white hairs 

 on its stem, and they quite cover the leaves. I 

 see too that on the ground the leaves grow in a 

 round tuft; the ones on the stem are smaller and 

 pointed." 



" Right," Tommy said, " all those things are 

 true about Poor Robin's Plantain. It's really 

 more like an Aster than a Daisy. It goes to seed 

 and looks gray like an old man almost before 

 Daisies have come, long before its Aster friends of 

 the autumn are here." 



After awhile Tommy said: " Perhaps that's 



