"Oh, that is a very beautiful thought for my little girl to have!" Mrs. Edson exclaimed, smoothing Elsie's hair lovingly. "And, yes, that is the truth, put very poetically. Love is sweet, like the honey that it replaces--at least it is for us human beings. Probably with the animals it is not of just the same quality that it is with us, for they do not act as if it were, but at least the animals are an improvement on the plants in this respect, and the love that they feel for each other finally evolves, in us, to become the sweet thing that we find it to be." "Isn't that lovely--and so strange!" exclaimed Elsie. "Yes, darling, it is lovely, and very strange. There are various kinds of love, as well as various degrees of the same kind, but this is a subject a little too deep for us to take up just yet. What I wish now is to teach you how the animals marry. And I will begin by saying that all forms of reproduction, which is the name given to having children, follow the same principle. The animals marry in a way that is only a variation of the plant way, and men and women marry in a way that is a variation of the plant and animal ways. But let us begin right, with the first appearance of life on earth." "Yes, mamma," Elsie cried eagerly. "But the _first_ life! That must have been very, very long ago, wasn't it?" "It was so far back in the history of the world that we can scarcely more than guess how long ago it must have been. We do not even know where it first appeared or just how it came to be. Some scientists believe that it occurred at the mouth of the Nile River, in Africa, in the rich soil that the river deposits there when it overflows its banks. Others think it was in the sea, or along the shores of some ocean in a tropical country. But we need not go into that here. What we do know is that the hot sun, shining on a certain spot on the earth or sea, which was just in the right condition, produced the first body containing life that the globe ever had, and that this body was only a little speck of jelly-like substance, which we call protoplasm, pro-to-plas-m. The word means 'first growth', for it was the first thing that ever appeared that was capable of growing. We also call it a cell. Now there was only one cell in the world. It had no companions. And what do you suppose happened?" "It must have been very lonesome," suggested Elsie, sympathetically. "Yes, it must have been--certainly it must if it could feel or think. But, at all events, whether or not it did feel lonely, it began right away to make companions. Of course you can't think how it did that, can you, dear?" "I--I am afraid not," Elsie hesitated. "Yet it was the very simplest way imaginable. It merely divided itself into two parts, each of which was just like the other." "Oh!" exclaimed Elsie. "But, then, mamma, who could tell which was the father or mother, and which was the child? Or were they just brother and sister, or two brothers?"