[Illustration: “I DON’T BELIEVE IT,” CHATTERED A SAUCY SQUIRREL.] “Oh! very well, you needn’t believe it if you don’t want to,” answered the fish in a hurt tone, “but I heard a man on board the steamer read the programme, and those are the very words he read.” “If we only had a dictionary,” again sighed the rose. “Dictionary, dictionary, dic, dic, dictionary,” murmured the brook, thoughtfully. “A dictionary is absolutely necessary before we can proceed any further,” said the south wind. “And as I am obliged to travel to New York this evening, I will search everywhere, and if possible bring one back with me. Anything can be had in New York. It is getting late, and I think we had better adjourn to meet again to-morrow. I hope to be able to return by two o’clock. In the meantime, let us all think deeply of what we have heard, and if any one can see a way out of our difficulty, let him tell us then.” The sunbeams kissed the flowers good-night, the forest trees waved farewell to the good wind, the brook called, “Good-night! sweet dreams till to-morrow, to-morrow, to-morrow,” and all the air was soft with bird vespers. * * * * * Into the bright sunshine of the next afternoon came the winds and the eager birds to the place on the bank where the violets grew. [Illustration: ALL THE AIR WAS SOFT WITH BIRD VESPERS.] The daisies leaned far over the bank to listen. The south wind came bringing two or three torn sheets of an old dictionary. “It is all I could find, and I’ve had hard work to get this,” said he. “I went in at a window where lay an open dictionary.—I had no idea that a dictionary was such a very large book.—It was an old one, so I had no trouble in tearing out these few leaves, as the paper was so tender. I took them out of the window and hid them in a safe place and went back for more, but just as I was turning the leaves over to find evolution, some one came up and shut the window, and I had to crawl out through the cracks. Well, I have all the ‘P’s’ and some of the ‘T’s’; we can find theology and poetry.” “Philosophy, too,” said wise Violet. “My dear, that is spelled with an ‘f,’” said the kind old wind patronizingly. “O, no! I am sure you are mistaken. It is ‘p-h-i-l’; look and see if I am not right.” The wind slowly turned over the leaves of his meagre dictionary, and, sure enough, there it was,—“p-h-i-l-o-s-o-p-h-y.” “Is it there? What does it say?” questioned the eager flowers. “Philosophy, the love of, or search after, wisdom,” slowly read the wind. “Oh!” said the flowers, “is that all it is? Why, we know philosophy.” “I think the forest trees could lecture on philosophy,” said the wind. “Yes, yes, yes,” they all cried. “The forest trees, for they are very old and have had longer to search for wisdom than we.” “Very well; three lectures a week on philosophy, by the old forest trees; write it down, please,” cried Bachelor.