Mountain-Laurel and Maidenhair Page 7

she found both profit and pleasure, as she ledher flock along the paths from which she removed the stumbling-blocksfor their feet, as well as for her own. She put her poetry into herlife, and made of it "a grand sweet song" in which beauty and dutyrhymed so well that the country girl became a more useful, beloved, andhonored woman than if she had tried to sing for fame which neversatisfies.

  So each symbolical plant stood in its own place, and lived its appointedlife. The delicate fern grew in the conservatory among tea-roses andcamellias, adding grace to every bouquet of which it formed a part,whether it faded in a ball-room, or was carefully cherished by some poorinvalid's bed-side,--a frail thing, yet with tenacious roots and strongstem, nourished by memories of the rocky nook where it had learned itslesson so well. The mountain-laurel clung to the bleak hillside,careless of wintry wind and snow, as its sturdy branches spread year byyear, with its evergreen leaves for Christmas cheer, its rosy flowersfor spring-time, its fresh beauty free to all as it clothed the wildvalley with a charm that made a little poem of the lovely spot where thepines whispered, woodbirds sang, and the hidden brook told the sweetmessage it brought from the mountain-top where it was born.

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