274 POPULAR TALES OP' FLOWERS 
and once again I stood in the garden of the old man. At 
once my eye was attracted by the singular appearance of 
a plant which lay prostrate at my feet. Half buried in 
the earth, sickly, yellow, and feeble, it appeared like one 
whose strength, ambition, and hopes had departed. !Me- 
thought I heard tones of gentle entreaty. I listened, and 
it said, “Awake, poor sleeping one, and look up.” 
“Nay,” returned the fallen plant in a feeble tone; 
“ shall I look up to see beauty to which I cannot attain, 
and strength which shall never be mine?” 
“ Thou shalt attain it when thine efforts are put forth. 
Arise.” 
“ I ami weak.” 
“Ask strength from me.” 
The fallen one was silent. Again the tender voice was 
heard urging its request. Then the deformed spake. 
“I pray thee, give me strength.” 
¥/ith the w’ords, she made an effort to rise, and lo ! 
she appeared upright before me. I looked upon her with 
surprise. She was the personification of deformity. 
The thorn of the thistle, the sting of the nettle, the 
poison of the fabled Upas tree were hers. Her leaves 
were defiled with the impurities which they had acquired 
in long intercourse with the dust of the earth; her flower- 
buds hung drooping in sullen obduracy; and fruit, un- 
pleasant to the eye and bitter to the taste, was scattered 
in awkw^ard profusion among her manifold branches. lake 
a bruised reed she rocked to and fro. 
“I cannot stand alone,” she said. 
“Ask for trusting love,” said the voice. 
She asked, and a forbidding thorn disappeared, and I 
saw a tiny, curling tendril put itself forth, till it reached 
the trunk of a neighbouring tree, to which it clung for 
support. 
“ I perceive upon myself an awkward and unseemly 
branch,” said the deformed. 
” said the voice. 
She asked, and the hand tenderly removed it. In so 
doing, it was wounded by the thorns, 
“Alas!” then said the changing plant, “how am I de- 
filed 1 I remember that there are leaves of bright green ; 
fair flowers, delicious fruit ; oh, that such were mine ! 
