Page:Stories told to a child.djvu/34

 The lilies were taller than the younger children, who would stand on tip-toe to push their little fingers into the higher flowers, and bring them down covered with yellow pollen.

Unchanged, themselves, in their white purity, they were yet susceptible of apparent change from difference in the light cast upon them. When the full glare of high noon was upon the tops of the elms, then was cast, through their leaves, upon the lilies, a faint tinge of most delicate green; but at sunset, we, who lived so much among them, sometimes saw a pure glow of crimson reflected through the white petals, when the setting sun sent his level beams between the trunks of the trees. But I have said enough of these fragrant lilies, they are dead now, and the hand that planted them.

As I before mentioned, after that successful Sunday, Lucy and I walked out in the garden early in the morning, and congratulated one another on our good behavior, which we intended always to last, and firmly believed it always would; but we were growing careless and confident, and though the thought of the red curtain never failed to bring salutary feelings with it, there were times when we did not think of it at all, and in one of those times temptation came.

It was fine weather, and we expected some cousins of Lucy's to spend the day with us, and, as we walked, we planned how we would pass the time. Lucy confided to me that they would most likely be very noisy, and perhaps rude; but this, like two little self-righteous Pharisees, as we were on that particular day, we decided to prevent if possible; certainly not to participate in, as Lucy said she often had done hitherto.

Rh