THERE was once a beautiful white Lily who lived in a green garden, and had all the happiness of sun and dew that can come into a flower’s life. Only one thing saddened her; now and then the gardener would come and gather some of her sisters: he took them away, and she never saw them again. One dreadful day the gardener came with a sharp knife and cut the Lily’s stalk and carried her away in his hand. As she went she shed bitter tears, and the gardener said: “What a lot of dew there is in this Lily!”

When she was brought to the house she was placed in a tall green vase and set by the bedside of a little sick child. When the child saw her beauty his tired eyes lighted up with pleasure, and he cried: “Oh, the dear Lily! Mother, when can I go out to see the other lilies growing?” And from that moment he began to get better.

“It was the Lily did it,” said his Mother, with tears of happiness. “He was so tired that if the Lily had not come to cheer him, he might have gone to sleep and never wakened here again.”

The Lily tried hard not to fade. She held herself up bravely, and day by day the sick child looked at the Lily and grew stronger and stronger. And at last a day came when he was well enough to be taken into the garden to see the lilies growing, and when he was gone the Lily drooped and drooped, for she felt that the end of her pretty green and white life was near. But though she was sad, she was not sorry, for she felt that she had done some good with her life. And as she drooped there a white butterfly came fluttering in. “Oh, happy Lily!” he cried. And she looked sadly at him. “I am not sorry—only sad,” she said.

“Sad,” he said; “do not you know what happens to all flowers who are able to help and comfort any little child? When they die, they turn into fairies and can fly for ever through all the green gardens of the world. The other flowers will only be flowers next year, but you will be a fairy.”

And as he spoke the Lily died and became a fairy, and she and the butterfly spread their white wings and flew out into the sunshine together.

E. Nesbit.