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after they were torn from the rocks, and separated 
from the green landscape they adorned. The other 
children did not know why it was so, but Mary 
picked them up as fast as they threw them away, 
for she knew it broke the hearts of flowers to be 
plucked and then neglected. 
All these Columbines were scarlet and yellow, 
but one of them, who said she would tell Mary her 
book-name if she would never call her by it, spoke 
of white, and blue, and purple, and rose-colored 
cousins who lived, some in the Swiss mountains, 
some among Siberian snows, and many in dear 
America, wherever it is cool and sunny too. “ Bot¬ 
anists call us Aquilegia,” she said, “ because our 
spurs look something like an eagle s claws. They 
call us Pajarillas in Spain, which I like better, for 
that means a little bird; but those great eagles steal 
little birds right out of the sky, and I do not like 
