Why should so much be done for the sake of the tiny ovules, white little atoms at the heart of the flower? Why should the flowers care? Why should they spread bright corollas and arrange these cunning protections and draw up the sap for the sake of the tiny white ovules? [Illustration: [Ovary]] Look into the ovary and see them. Six small white things are they, so small and soft you would scarcely think they were worth much care. But look again and think a little. They are very wonderful, although so small. They grow to the ovary by a little stem; they get the good sap to grow on through this stem. They have a little hole through their delicate coats, and through this hole the pollen enters. When the pollen is in, the little hole closes, and the ovules feel strong and alive. They draw in the sap the leaves have made them through their little stem; they grow larger and firmer. They cease to be tiny white round things; they get two leaves with a little stem and a bud between them. They are no longer ovules, they are seeds. They are little sleeping vines. In each black little seed is a whole vine packed away. After a time the old vine will fade away. It will fall and turn brown. It will do no more work of changing gases and minerals into living plant. It will not again have green leaves and bear bright flowers. But there will be more morning-glories, for the vine has stored some of its life in the seeds, and they will not fade and cease to work. All that is left of the life of the vine is in the seeds. All the morning-glories that will grow and delight us with their bright flowers next summer lie packed away in the dark seeds. Dear little seeds, live on through the cold winter; without you we never again could see our bright morning-glories! And that is why the vines take such care of the seeds; the whole race of morning-glories is in their keeping. THE LEAVES. The leaves of the morning-glory consider each other. They stand close together, but, as you see, they do not crowd. [Illustration: [Leaves]] They turn a little to one side that all may have as much room as possible, for each needs all the light and air it can get. The leaves also have regard for the roots working away in the dark earth. Instead of being flat, they have a channel down the middle, a gutter to convey the rain water from leaf to leaf, and finally to the ground above the roots. Some of the roots, it is true, stray away, but some stay close to the plant and suck up the rain the leaves send them. The young leaves fold together. They are very tender, and too much cold or too much heat would harm them; and if they were open, the sun would draw away too much of their water. [Illustration: [Leaves]] So they lie close and snug, and do not open until they have grown large and strong enough to meet the bright sunshine and the cold night. Then they open wide; they become green and do their work, which is to make food for the plant.