strawberries which bowed down their heads to his touch.



CHAPTER IX.



And when he had eaten his fill, he sat down on the soft moss,
crossed one little leg over the other, and began to gossip with the
Fire-flies. And as he so often thought on his unknown parents, he
asked them who were their parents. Then the one nearest to him gave
him answer; and he told how that they were formerly flowers, but
none of those who thrust their rooty hands greedily into the ground
and draw nourishment from the dingy earth, only to make themselves
fat and large withal; but that the light was dearer to them than
anything, even at night; and while the other flowers slept, they
gazed unwearied on the light, and drank it in with eager adoration--
sun, and moon, and star light. And the light had so thoroughly
purified them, that they had not sucked in poisonous juices like the
yellow flowers of the earth, but sweet odours for sick and fainting
hearts, and oil of potent ethereal virtue for the weak and the
wounded; and at length, when their autumn came, they did not, like
the others, wither and sink down, leaf and flower, to be swallowed
up by the darksome earth, but shook off their earthly garment and
mounted aloft, into the clear air. But there it was so wondrously
bright, that sight failed them; and when they came to themselves
again, they were fire-flies, each sitting on a withered flower-
stalk.