V.
The Lesson of a Daisy
I saw her from afar, poor child; she looked dreamy as she leaned against the window, and held in her hand a daisy, which she was questioning by gradually pulling it to pieces. What she wanted to ascertain I cannot tell; I only heard in a low murmur, falling from her pale lips, these words: "a little, a great deal, passionately, not [pg 133]at all," as each petal her fingers pulled away fell fluttering at her feet.
I could see her from a distance, and I felt touched.
Poor child, why do you tell a flower the thought that troubles you? have you no mother?
Why be anxious about the future? have you not God to prepare it for you, as tenderly as eighteen years ago your mother prepared your cradle?
Finally, when the daisy was all but gone, when her fingers stopped at the last petal, and her lips murmured the word little, she dropped her head upon her arms, discouraged, and, poor child, she wept!
Why weep, my child? is it because this word does not please you?
Let me, let me, in the name of the simple daisy you have just destroyed, give you the experience of my old age.