"Isn't that Dame Spring?" asked the anemone.
"Not just yet," replied the beech-leaves. "It's we, the green leaves you were so angry with in the summer. Now we have lost our brightness and have not much left to make a show of. We have enjoyed our youth and had our fling, you know. And now we are lying here and protecting all the little flowers in the ground against the winter."
"And meanwhile I am standing and freezing in my bare branches," said the beech, crossly.
The anemones talked about it down in the earth and thought it very nice:
"Those dear beech-leaves!" they said.
"Mind you remember it next summer, when I come into leaf," said the beech.
"We will, we will!" whispered the anemones.
For that sort of thing is promised, but the promise is never kept.
