She frolicked with the negro children, and decked their little woolly heads with wreaths of golden-rod, till they looked as fantastic as dancing monkeys.

She gathered great sheaves of ferns and blue gentians and asters, until the Parson implored her to "leave a few just for the poor sun to shine on." The paths winding among "The Cedars" were in some places thick-set with white eupatoriums, which were now in full, feathery flower, some of them so old that, as you brushed past them, a cloud of the fine thread-like petals flew in all directions.

Mercy gathered branch after branch of these, but threw them away impatiently, as the flowers fell off, leaving the stems bare.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed.

"Nature wants some seeds, I suppose; but I want flowers.

What becomes of the poor flower, any way?
it lives such a short while; all its beauty and grace sacrificed to the making of a seed for next year." "That's the way with every thing in life, dear child," said Parson Dorrance.