the world is ours, and we can roam in it at will; for spirit, there,
is ever victorious over matter.

"Once upon a time," saith the Story-Teller, "there was a beautiful
locust tree, that bent its delicate fans and waved its creamy blossoms
in the sunshine, and laughed because its flowers were so lovely and
fragrant and the world was so fresh and green in its summer dress."

"It's queer for a tree to laugh," said Bright-Eye.

"But queerer if it didn't laugh, with such lovely blossoms hanging all
over it," replied Fine-Ear.

Everything is real to the happy child. Life is a sort of fairy garden,
where he wanders as in a dream. "He can make abstraction of whatever
does not fit into his fable; and he puts his eyes into his pocket just
as we hold our noses in an unsavory lane."

Stories offer a valuable field for instruction, and for introducing in
simple and attractive form much information concerning the laws of
plant and flower and animal life.

A story of this kind, however, must be made as well as told by an
artist; for in the hands of a bungler it is quite as likely to be a
failure as a success. It must be compounded with the greatest care,
and the scientific facts must be generously diluted and mixed in small
proportions with other and more attractive elements, or it will be
rejected by the mental stomach; or, if received in one ear, will be
unceremoniously ushered from the other with an "Avaunt! cold fact!
What have thou and I in common!"