Page:Voice of Flowers.pdf/102

100

A Sage-plant, who had cast off his blossoms, and gone to seed, heard her flippancy of speech and reproved her. He said, "knowlege is good; it teaches men how to be useful to each other, and keeps women from too much gadding abroad.

"By knowledge, my own salubrious properties have been discovered, so that I am not cut down like a common weed. Right knowledge teaches both men and flowers not to be slanderous, for it gives them higher and better subjects of thought."

So the Dandelion was silent before the Sage and ceased to laugh at those who were wiser than herself. For she had already perceived that they had some kind of secret happiness, and took comfort when other flowers were out of spirits, on stormy days, and when no butterflies visited them.