insects, and the birds' songs, all helped to send him to sleep. And peacefully the fair child slumbered, his rosy cheek resting on the hands that still held his treasured basket. But while he slept a sudden change came on. A storm arose in the heavens, but a few moments before so blue and beautiful. Heavy masses of clouds gathered darkly and ominously together; the lightning flashed, and the thunder rolled louder and nearer. Suddenly a gust of wind roared in the boughs of the oak, and startled the boy out of his quiet sleep. He saw the whole heavens vailed by black clouds; not a sunbeam gleamed over the fields, and a heavy clap of thunder followed his waking. The poor child stood up, bewildered at the sudden change; and now the rain began to patter through the leaves of the oak, so he snatched up his basket, and ran toward home as fast as his legs could carry him. The storm seemed to burst over his head. Rain, hail, and thunder, striving for the mastery, almost deafened him, and made him more bewildered every minute. Water streamed from his poor soaked curls down his shoulders, and he could scarcely see to find his way homeward. All on a sudden a more violent gust of wind than usual caught the treasured basket, and scattered all his carefully-collected flowers far away over the field. His patience could endure no longer, for his face grew distorted with rage, and he flung the empty basket from him, with a burst of anger. Crying bitterly, and thoroughly wet, he reached at last his parents' house in a pitiful plight. But soon another change appeared; the storm passed away, and the sky grew clear again. The birds began their songs anew, the countryman his labor. The air had become cooler and purer, and a bright calm seemed to lie lovingly in every valley and on every hill. What a delicious odor rose from the freshened fields! and their cultivators looked with grateful joy at the departing clouds, which had poured the fertilizing rain upon them. The sight of the blue sky soon tempted the frightened boy out again, and being by this time ashamed of his ill-temper, he went very quietly to look for his discarded basket, and to try and fill it again. He seemed to feel a new life within him. The cool breath of the air--the smell of the fields--the leafy trees--the warbling birds, all appeared doubly beautiful after the storm, and the humiliating consciousness of his foolish and unjust ill-temper softened and chastened his joy. After a long search he spied the basket lying on the slope of a hill, for a bramble bush had caught it, and sheltered it from the violence of the wind. The child felt quite thankful to the ugly-looking bush as he disentangled the basket.