HICH-WAY AND BY-WAY, fald Bouncing Bet to Black-eyed Sum “Oh, leave your stupid meadow, do, And just for ones try my way: Pull up your roots, dear, every one, And nt yourself as | have done, Along the busy higaway. “You see life here! and more than that, en yourseif, It must be flat. yd all computation, y grow unnoticed hour by hour— 16 mighe as weil & a flower AS win no admiration! no 1 her tastes is and butted And other such sinnlicitios, she'd stay where she was rooted. atl i t tier bafell, nusty : $ still were bright pomn had fadded white, S were brown and rusty. Now listen, children, while I The fale that Bouncing By highways dry and While meadow-Dlosson Her pinky b Her leave Ard people passat her where she gre. And went to look for Rlaek-eyed Sus AS nileht have Leen expected; Her yellow blossoms in a vase Won everybody's smiling praise and poor Bet drooped neglected! [St Nicholas, It is really a lovely garden. Never | were there whiter lilies, nor bluer | violets, nor more interesting pansies, But it needs something, ¥ think it | is bees, For hees are so picturesque! then the hives!—the hives are as pic- | taresque as the bees themselves. Apple trocs without bechives under them are | as forlorn as lilies without bees over | them, i 80 we bought some beautiful hives, | and placed them in the orchard, just | on the edge of the garden. Soon they | began to fill with delicious honey in dear little white cells; but the bees | were nowhere to be seen. Every! morning they disappeared, flying far out of sizht, and the lilies and roses were as forlorn as ever. We had the oredit of baving bees, for every one eould see the hives and taste the honey; but we did not have the bees, So one morning I went out and talked to them about it, “Dear Bees,” I said, “what is it that you miss in the garden? Every morn- ing you fly away; but where can yon 8nd whiter lilies, or bluer violets or more interesting pansies?” “We are not looking tor whiteness, or blueness, or ioterestingness,” the bees explained. “We are looking for honey; and the honey is better in the cloverfield that is only & mile away.” “Oh! if that is all,” I exclaimed glad- | ly, ‘Pray don’t have the honey on | your minis" : “We don't,” they said. it in littl: bags.” “| mean don't honey—" “Certainly not; how could we, when we haven't any minds?” “But please don't feel obliged to hunt for honey. I don't care at all | for honey; that is,” I added hastily, as a slight buzzing made me fear that per- haps I had hurt their feelings, “I like | you, youknow, for yourselves alone, not | for what you can give me. The honey | is delicious, but we can buy it very | ice at the grocer’s. If you like honey | for yourselves, J will buy some, and | ili the hives for you, so that you | needn't work at ali, if you will only stay in the garden, and hover over the | ilies, and-—and—be picturesque.” i They promised to try. And they did try. Whenever I looked from my library windo+s, I could see them practicing their hovering, and they really hovered exiremely well. Satis- | fied that my garden was at last com- plate, I gave up watching if, and de- voted myself to library work. Every morning I seated myself at the desk and wrote rapidly till noon. But one | day 1 was interrupted by a bee. He had flown in at the window. Perching himself on the lid of the ink- | stand he waited a while; then at last | asked quietly: ! “Why are you not out of doors this | beau'iful morning? The garden is lovely; I cannot see—" and he glanced critically at the vases about the room— | ““I cannot see that these lilies here are | any whiter, or the violets anr bluer, or | the pansies any more interesting than Shose out there. And we miss you. A garden really ought to have people walking about in it. That is what gar- | dens are for. I don’t see why we must | bo out there to be seen, when there is | nobody to see us.” i *‘But, dear bee, I am not looking for | flowers this morning; I am writing.” | “And what are yon writing?” ! “A sonnet.” *‘Are there no sonnets to be had at the stores?” “Oh, yes! Bhakspere's and Milton's and Wordsworth's, of course.” ‘And are your sonnets better than