POPULAR TALES OF FLOWERS 
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leaves grow longer every day, that under their shade she 
may find shelter when the silver-footed showers descend. 
Her eyes are ever blue as her own April skies ; her cheeks 
dyed with the delicate crimson of the apple-blossoms; her 
white and blue-veined neck beautiful as a bed of lilies-of- 
the-valley, intersected with trailing violets ; while her 
silken hair streams out like the graceful acacias, that throw 
their gold and green upon the breeze. 
Around her brow is twined a wreath of May-blossoms — 
pearly buds, but yet unblown. High above her head the 
skylark soars, while the linnet warbles in the brake, and 
from every tree and bush an hundred choristers raise their 
voices in the great concert which they hold to welcome 
her. The sunbeams that dance about the primrose-co- 
loured sky, the insects that hum and wanton in the air, 
the flowers that day by day rise higher above the bladed 
grass, and the bursting buds that grow bolder as they 
venture out further from the hedgerows to peep at her 
beauty, all proclaim with what delight the return of spring 
is ever hailed. 
HOW THE ROSE BECAME RED. 
A Flower Legend. 
It was drawing towards the decline of a beautiful summer 
day, when the red, round sun was bending down a deep, 
blue, unclouded sky, to where a vast range of mountains 
stretched, summit upon summit, and in the far distance 
arose, pile upon pile, until high over all towered the god- 
haunted height of cloud-capt Olympus, rising with its 
clouded head, like another world, on the uttermost rim 
of the horizon. At the foot of this immense world of 
untrodden mountains opened out a wide, immeasurable 
forest, stretching far away, league beyond league, with its 
unpeopled ocean of trees, which were bounded somewhere 
by another range of unknown mountains, that again over- 
looked a vast, silent, and unexplored world. 
On the edge of this pathless desert of trees, and nearest 
the foot of Olympus, sat the Queen of Beauty and of 
Love, with her golden tresses unbound, and her matchless 
