"I faint—I faint!" murmured the Pitcher-plant, dropping her urn.
"Oho! oho! now we shall have a change," cried Jack, as the clock struck three. And sure enough the bright-eyed school-children came trooping in, and caught sight of them.
"Oh, my darling little Violets, where did you come from? And oh, you sweet, sweet Daisies!" cried one yellow-haired lassie.
"And these Buttercups!" screamed another.
"And droll old Jack; who would have thought to see him in town?" chimed a third.
"Tit for tat, Master Jack," whispered May-apple, tartly.
The moment the children recognized the beauties of the wild flowers, every one else did. Old gentlemen with high-bred noses came and peered at them through big spectacles. Young ladies talked of their families, and—oh, horrors!—said they would like to dissect them. Old ladies smiled on them pleasantly, and one, a grandmother, actually shed tears, and said, "I haven't seen their like in fifty years."
But now it began to grow tiresome, this big world they had come to see; the sunlight streamed through the great windows, the tiny blossoms grew faint in the sultry air. When would the hum of speech grow silent, the clouds come brooding above them, and the soft rain-drops patter down?
The flowers grew fainter and fainter. A grand old man is now speaking at the end of the hall; but they can not listen.
"Oh, for a breeze from the pine-barrens!" sighed the beauty.