But the fruit lasts to all eternity.

No seed is lost--in earth's brown bosom cast;
No deed is lost--of all the deeds we do;
Each grows to fruit--is harvested at last,
Haply in shape undreamed of, fair, and new.
And, though we die before the end be won,
Our deeds live on; and other men will cry,
Seeing the end of what we have begun,
"Still lives the fruit for which the flowers had to die!"

_E. Nesbit._

[Illustration]

[Illustration]



XIII.


Birds, joyous birds, of the wandering wing!
Whence is it ye come with the flowers of Spring?
"We come from the shores of the green old Nile,
From the land where the roses of Sharon smile,
And each worn wing hath regained its home
Under peasants' roof-trees or monarch's dome."

And what have ye found in the monarch's dome,