thought they were entitled to a holiday, and had gone to the
mountain-tops, where they were resting calmly, feeling very grand among
such an assembly of crowned heads.

Meanwhile the meadow grew browner and browner, and its pretty dress was
being scorched so that by and by no one would have recognized it for
the gay thing it had been a week ago. And still the sun glared angrily
down, and the little breeze was dead.

Then the grasses laid down their tiny spears, and the dandelions bent
their heads, and the locusts and the crickets and the grasshoppers
called feebly,--

"Oh, little brook, cannot you get out of your bed and come this way?"

"Our hearts are broken," cried the daisies.

"We shall die," wailed the ragged-sailors. Then they all waited for
the brook to reply; but she was silent, and call as they would they
could get no answer.

"Hush!" whispered the springs. "Her bed is empty. Have n't you
noticed how little she sang lately? The weeds must have fallen asleep
and she has run away. You know they always hindered her."

They did not tell that they were too weak to feed the brook; so it had
dried away. And still the sun glared down, and the little breeze was
dead, and the brook had disappeared; while there on the door-step sat
Marie weeping big tears,--for the little maid was always sad, and come
when you would, there was Marie with her dark eyes filled and brimming