28 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
companions, and their only delight were to call to 
and answer each other. She sang from the very 
overjoyousness of her heart, like a bird, perched 
amid a cluster of milk-white blossoms, that takes 
a delight in telling the trees, and flowers, and 
sunshine, which hang around it, how great is the 
pleasure that fills its little heart, and how happy it 
is in the companionship of such sweet scenery : and 
should the form of a stranger appear, the golden 
chain of her melody was snapped asunder in an 
instant, and, like a bird, she would dart down to her 
little thatched nest in the valley below. Her 
modesty, and the sweetness of her voice, had ob¬ 
tained for her, amidst the neighbouring villagers, 
the name of The Violet of the Valley. 
Those who know not the bliss which springs from 
contentment, might marvel how one so beautiful 
could rest satisfied by burying herself in such 
seclusion. They might as well have asked the Violet 
why it was so happy in the solitude which sur¬ 
rounded it, why it concealed its beauty amid the 
green leaves by which it was overhung, and scattered 
its sweetness upon “the desert air and the Violet 
might have replied, that although the air which 
blew around it was deserted, yet many a breeze 
would carry its sweetness afar off, perfuming unseen 
and distant places that were not solitary. Although 
her beauty had not gladdened the gaze of many 
