"They're very sweet, to be sure," said Caroline, "but they are not particularly pretty; these are much prettier," and she turned to a group of hyacinths which were just by.

"Yes, those are more beautiful," said her aunt, "but I should prefer the violets, they smell so sweetly after they have faded."

When Agnes had enjoyed the violets for some time, and gathered several handsfull, she turned to the hyacinths, and breaking off their crisp stalks very quickly, asked if she might plant them in a bit of ground that her aunt had given her for a garden.

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They are very difficult to get up, you could not get them without a spade or fork." "Oh! but I mean these, just what I have gathered."

"These would fade directly, dear; you had much better put them in water, they would not grow in the ground."

Agnes looked as if she did not understand, but her aunt turning to speak to Miss Horton, she was obliged to wait to have her curiosity satisfied; and in the meantime filled her basket with primroses, hyacinths, and violets. On their road home, she walked very quietly, taking hold of her aunt's hand, till she had done talking, and then she said, "Aunt Jane, what makes plants grow ?" "What makes you grow?" was her aunt's reply.

"Me! oh, eating food makes me grow ! "Well, the plant grows from eating food." "Oh, aunt, you must be laughing at me, the plant has no mouth nor teeth, how can it eat? and it cannot go to fetch its food, and it has nobody to feed it."

“Very true, my dear, the plant has no mouth, it gets its food out of the ground; it draws it up through its stalk, and though it cannot go and fetch its food, its food comes

to it, and garden plants very often have their food brought to them; I often feed my plants, and the gardener feeds some every day."

"Oh dear! aunt Jane, how puzzling you are, what can you mean by all this?"

"Did you not hear grandmamma say this morning to me, 'If you do not take care that rose will die for want of water?' Well, that is its food; if there were no wet in the ground, the plant could not get any food, and it would die.”

"But that is only drinking, do they never eat? I should not like to live on water only."

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There is nourishment in the water, and as it passes through the earth it gets nourishment from it, and feeds the plant; perhaps you will be still more surprised to hear that the plant has a sort of blood that circulates through it."

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How

very curious. Miss Horton was tell

ing me a little while since about the circulation of my blood, and how it goes out of the heart, and comes into it again, after having gone all about the body; but what is the blood of plants? it is not red, and they have no room for a heart."

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Their blood is called sap, my dear; but though plants have no heart, this sap flows through all the little branches; the blood of plants has little or no colour."

"How very wonderful all this is, Aunt Jane, I must tell Caroline all about it; I wonder whether Miss Horton knows it?" and the eager little girl ran to let others share in her pleasure; she did not find Caroline, however, particularly interested in what she had to communicate. Miss Horton knew it all before, but she kindly entered into Agnes' pleasure, and was interested in all she had to tell her. It was this interest, ever awake and ever ready, that endeared Miss Horton to

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Agnes. Everything that interested the child interested her; there was not a joy or a sorrow that Agnes brought to her kind friend that did not receive sympathy; she was young enough to remember when she was herself a child, and therefore fully entered into all the feelings of Agnes, who, finding her sympathy and kindness so delightful in contrast with the selfishness of Caroline, made her much more of a companion, and even a playfellow.

On their return from their walk, they went round the garden, where the gardener was very busy. Agnes stayed behind to watch him, but soon ran after her aunt and said, "Aunt Jane, what is the gardener doing, putting little things that look like shot and dust and bits of straw into the ground, and covering them up, and marking where he has put them with bits of stick? What good will they come to?"