The Basket of Flowers

ary great pleasure in again being able to prepare her father's meals, and to look after his comforts in every way; and together they led a life of quiet happiness. The good friends with whom the

ing it to the growing of flowers and fruit, and when he proposed to pu

morning to night. The garden was divided into beds planted with all sorts of vegetables and flowers, and bordered with gravel walks. The old man was anxious to see the completion of h

a burst of verdure and blossom, that the valley, which was overshadowed by dark trees, now assumed quite a smiling appearance. An orchard belonging to the farmer, which had also been taken

st, and to regain the cheerful humour which had made his conversation such a delight in the past. Once more he began to refle

te open, had gone in and begun to plunder a full-blown rose bush, with the result that he scratched himself terribly with the sharp thorns. His mother and the farmer's wife, as well as James and his daughter, hea

way by a taste for the dance and theatre, others by a taste for strong drink, or still more shameful vices. But the thorns make themselves felt by and by, and then there comes lament for wasted youth, and a distaste for the pleasures once so eagerly sought. Do no

It is necessary that we should constantly apply ourselves to cultivate the good and to extract the evil, which is too apt to take root. That we may fulfil faithfully these two duties, let us implore God's assistance and blessing, which makes the sun to shine out and the rain to fall, the plants to grow

se. James had lately begun to feel his strength failing, and the thought of his daughter's future gave him considerable uneasiness. He concealed his feelings from her for fear of distressing her, but Mary observed that her father's remarks upon the flowers were now mostly of a melancholy kind. One day she observed a rose-bud which had never blossomed. In attempting to gather it the leaves

imbed a ladder to pluck some apples, while

white hairs. I am in my autumn, my dear child, as you will also be some day. Try to grow like this excellent apple tree, whi

e corn is enfolded in the earth, it is animated. It springs from the earth in the form of a beautiful flower, and rises thus triumphantly from the place where it was buried. So also shall we rise one day from our tombs with sp