But at last, for he was a kind wind after all, he blew the leaf back,
straight to the side of the Violet. How close they cuddled to each
other, and how happy they were! You would have been very glad if you
had seen them together.

In the morning, when the sun rose yellow and bright, Bessie came into
the woods with a basket and a trowel. It was nearly winter, and she
knew that soon the snow would fall and cover all the pretty growing
things. So she dug up, very carefully, roots of plumy fern and
partridge berries with their leaves, and wintergreen and boxberry
plants, to grow in her window-garden in the winter. She took the
Violet too, bringing away so much of the earth around her roots that
the little thing scarcely felt that she had been moved. As Bessie put
her plants in the basket, she saw the little Maple-leaf resting close
by the violet, but he looked so pretty, lying there, that she did not
move him.

In the sunny window of the little brown house the Violet grew still
more fresh and green. But each day, as the plants were watered, the
Maple-leaf curled up a little more at the edges, and sank down farther
into the earth, until soon he was almost out of sight, and by and by
crumbled quite away. Still he was close beside his Violet, and all the
strength he had he gave to her roots.

She always loved him just the same, though she could not see him any
longer, and by and by, when she had lived her life, and her leaves
withered away, each one, as it fell from the stem, sank into the earth
where the Maple-leaf lay.