and each of the young girls picked a flower to put into the buttonhole of one of the gentlemen's coats; but the young Scotch lady looked long round and round, rejected this flower and that, and did not seem to find any to please her. At length she cast a glance towards the paling, on the other side of which stood the large thistle, with its hardy, reddish-purple flowers. On seeing it she smiled, and desired the son of her host to pluck one of them for her.

"It is Scotland's flower!" she exclaimed, "and it looks well in the armorial bearings of my country. Bring it to me."

And he fetched the nicest one, and it pricked his finger, as if it had been the sharpest thorn that ever grew on a rose.

She placed the flower of the thistle in the young man's buttonhole, and he felt himself very much honoured. All of the other young men would have gladly given the splendid flowers they wore to have had the humble blossom bestowed by the Scotch lady's fair hand. And if the gentleman she had so distinguished felt proud, what did not the thistle feel? It seemed as if dew and sunshine were passing through it.

"I am of more consequence than I thought I was!" it said to itself. "I belong much more to the inside of the paling than the outside; my home should be there. Things are strangely ordered in this world! But now I have one of my flowers over the paling, and even in a button-hole!"

To every bud that unfolded itself she related this event, and before many days had gone by the thistle heard, not from human beings, nor from twittering birds, but from the air itself, which receives and conveys sounds far and near, and gathered from the most private walks in the garden, and the apartments of the mansion, where the doors and the windows stand open, that the young heir, who had received the thistle flower from the Scotch lady's hand, had now also obtained that hand, and her heart with it. They were a handsome couple, and it was a good match.

"It was I who brought them together!" said the thistle-bush, thinking of the flower that she had given for the button-hole. Every bud as it opened had to listen to this circumstance.

"I shall surely now be transplanted to the garden," thought the thistle; "perhaps squeezed into a flower-pot; that is the most honourable place."

And the thistle thought so constantly on this subject, that it became fully persuaded it would be put into a large flower-pot. It promised every one of the little thistle-blossoms as they peeped forth that it should also be placed in a flower-pot, perhaps in a button-hole, which would be the greatest honour. But none of them were put into pots or lay in a button-hole; they imbibed air

and light, tasted the sunshine by day, and the dew by night; they bloomed; they were visited by bees and horse-flies, who sought marriage portions, the honey in the flowers, and they took away the honey, leaving the flowers behind.

A pack of robbers!" cried the thistle-bush. have spit upon them! But I could not."

"Would I could

The poor flowers hung their heads, sickened, and died; but new ones appeared.

"You come as if you were called!" exclaimed the thistle. "Every moment I am expecting that we shall be taken over the paling.'

Two innocent wild tansies and a long thin weed stood and listened in great amazement, and believed all that the thistle said. The old ass that drew the milk-cart cast wistful glances at the blooming thistle, but the path was not near enough for him to reach it.

The thistle thought so long about the thistle of Scotland, to whose species it belonged, that at last it came to believe that it had come itself from Scotland, and that its ancestors had flourished in the Scotch arms. It was a grand idea, but a large thistle might have great thoughts.

"One is sometimes of a more distinguished family than one can venture to tell!" said the nettle, which grew close by. It had an idea of greatness, and thought it might become "muslin" if properly handled.

And the summer passed, and the autumn passed; the leaves fell from the trees; the flowers had more vivid colours, but less fragrance. The gardener's boy sang in the garden near the paling, and the young pine-trees in the wood began to long for Christmas; but it was yet some time to Christmas.

"Here I am still standing!" said the thistle. "It would seem as if nobody thought of me; and yet it was I who brought about the match. They became engaged, and the wedding took place eight days ago. I did not move a single step, however, for I could

not."

A few more weeks passed on; the thistle stood with its last and only flower, strong and fully formed. It was hidden near the root, but the chill wind blew over it, its colour faded, its beauty went; its calyx, much resembling the flower of an artichoke, appeared like a sunflower silvered over.

Then came into the garden the young couple, now man and wife; they went towards the paling, and the lady looked beyond it.

"There still stands the large thistle!" she said, "but it has no more flowers,"

"Oh yes! there is the ghost of the last!" he replied, pointing to the silver-looking remains of the flower, in itself a flower.

"And very pretty it is!" she said. "It must be cut off, and copied in our picture."

So the young man had again to get over the paling, and had to break off the calyx of the thistle-flower. It pricked his finger, for he had called it "a ghost." And it was taken into the garden, and into the house, and into a room, where stood a painting, "The Young Couple." In the bridegroom's button-hole was painted the flower of a thistle. And much was said about this, and also much about the calyx of the flower they had brought in, the last, and now silver-looking thistle-blossom, which was to be carved on the frame.

And the air carried the conversation out, and spread it far and

near.

"What may one not live to see!" cried the thistle-bush. "My first-born was placed in a button-hole; my last-born will flourish on a frame! What shall I come to?"

And the ass in the little path glanced wistfully at the thistle. "Come to me, my dearest love! I cannot go to you, for I am fastened to this cart."

But the thistle-bush made no reply; it stood lost in thought; it thought and it thought enough to have lasted it up to Christmastime. At length it exclaimed:

"When one's children are inside, is it right that a mother should be left standing outside the paling?"

"That is a very proper remark!" said a sunbeam. "You shall also have a good place!"

"In a flower-pot or on a frame?" asked the thistle. "In a story!" replied the sunbeam.

And here it is!

EDITH.

WE met, Edith and I-I was too soon-
Outside the town one summer afternoon,
And stroll'd beside the river, silent both;
Or saying little, and that little loth,
And far from thoughts that fill'd us utterly:
Irrelevant inquiry and reply,

Or passing observation on the view,
The weather, this or that; for well she knew
Myself had come to hear, as she to say,
To my oft-pleaded suit, or 'yea' or 'nay,'
For weal or woe; and that herself indeed,
Long time reluctant to give any heed,

Saying, 'she was too young,' or, 'scarce had thought
If she did really love me as she ought,'

At length had promised then and there to give
Her fatal answer: so, contemplative,
Along the margin of the river fleet,
Now flowing full, up even to our feet
(That all unguided the right track pursued)
And making on the other side a crude
And tremulous copy of the steadfast hills,
We saunter'd,-past the last of the three mills;
Past garden terraces that kept their trim
Prank'd lawns from slipping to the river's brim;
Past ripening orchards and crops ripe to reap;
Past uplands dotted with white tinkling sheep;
And past the hoary ruin looking down
On us with seven centuries of renown,—
Until we lost the murmur of the town,
And our track ended in a woodland steep.

For after broadening in a silvery sweep
The river came abruptly to an end;

Or so had seemed, with neither break nor bend,
To less familiar ramblers, without doubt,

But at its utmost limit opened out

Between two hills, half heather and half leys,

In narrow channel overarched with trees,

And fringed with moss and ferns of various frond
Where, for the slanting of the sun beyond
The twilight mirror of the rippling glade,

The dark green covert made a bright green shade

Down the deep water. And here, as well we knew,
Though haply none beside, where thickest grew
Linden and larch in cloistral colonnade,

There was a seat for none save lovers made,
And, certes, none but lovers had found out!
'Twas floor'd of velvet moss, and arm'd about
With intertwisted branches, where, between
Two limes that made a canopy of green
And fragrant fret, and, sootheful as a lute,
Stood yearning towards each other foot to foot,
A slip of slope had made snug room enough
For two fond lovers to unfold their love.

And there sat we awhile in silence, each
As fearing to prevent the other's speech,-
I knowing well enough who must begin,
She conscious of my thought, nor loth to win
Brief respite, knowing all, and more than I;
Who, catching at the stalks that grew thereby,
Unheedful, and them dropping bit by bit
Upon the glassy mirror, breaking it
To rounding circles that went broadening
In tremulous pursuit, ring after ring,
And made a frame of slowly glazing space
For the diluted beauty of her face,

Gazed down thereat, and straight impelled thereby-
With less of consequential jeopardy,

Abashed, than had I turned and, overbold,

Gazed on the loveliness itself-retold

My love: nor listened she as one who heard

Whereto she had not hearkened word for word

Already; but, her willing little hand,

Which I did hold as 'twere an empire grand,
Resting in mine, while oft her tears would fall,
In tenor thus she told me all and all:

gave,

"When I have said I did not love you, or
Did love you not completely as I ought,
Assured you ne'er would wed save all for love;
That I was too unworthy of your love,
And dare not take a greater than I
And prayed you to forget me and transfer
The boon on one more worthy, as were best;
And sought to turn it from me evermore,
And went the way to make you even dislike me,
Or thought I tried and that I wished to try—