_Columbus._ "THEN IT MUST BE THE WEST INDIES WE'RE COMING TO, AND I'D HOPED IT WAS GOING TO BE AMERICA."] * * * * * FLOWERS' NAMES. CROW'S-FOOT. Have you noticed that the splendid dreams, the best dreams that there are, Come always in the darkest nights without a single star? When the moonless nights are blackest the best dreams are about; I'll tell you why that should be so and how I found it out. There's a bird who comes at night-time, and underneath his wings, All warm and soft and feathery, lie tiny fairy things; He spreads his wings out widely (you see them, not the dark) And you hear the fairies whispering, "Hush! hush!" "I'll tell you!" "Hark!" The bird is black and feathery, but his feet are made of gold; He chiefly comes in summer-time, for fairies hate the cold; And if the nights are velvet-dark and full of summer airs He lingers till the sun creeps up and finds him unawares. And so you'll see in summer-time, when all the dew is wet, The footprints of his golden claws maybe will linger yet; The little golden flower-buds will gleam like golden grain, And if you pick and cherish them perhaps you'll dream again. * * * * * [Illustration: "HAVE YOU EVER BEEN UP IN AN AEROPLANE, GRANDPA?" "NO, MY BOY--NOT YET."] * * * * * HONOURS EASY. I. Not very long ago the following advertisements appeared in the same column of _The Southshire Daily Gazette_: "Lost, a pure black Pekinese dog, wearing a silver badge marked 'Cherub.' Handsome reward offered. F.B., Grand Hotel, Brightbourne." "Found, a black Pekinese, wearing a silver badge marked 'Cherub.' No reward required. The Limes, Cheviot Road, Brightbourne." II. On the same morning the paper was opened and scanned almost simultaneously by Mrs. Frederick Bathurst in the sitting-room which she and her husband occupied at the Grand Hotel, and by Mr. Hartley Friend in the morning-room at "The Limes." "Oh, Fred," exclaimed Mrs. Bathurst, "Cherub has been found. He's all safe at a house called 'The Limes,' in Cheviot Road. Isn't that splendid?" "Very good news," said her husband. "I told you not to worry." "It's a direct answer to prayer," said Mrs. Bathurst. "But--" "But what?" her husband inquired. "But I do wish you had taken my advice not to offer any reward. You might so easily have left it open. People aren't so mercenary as all that. It stands to reason that anyone staying at an hotel like this and bringing a dog with them--always an expensive thing to do--and valuing it enough to advertise its loss, would behave properly when the time came." "I don't know," Mr. Bathurst replied. "Does anything stand to reason? The ordinary dog-thief, holding up an animal to ransom, might be deterred from returning it if no mention of money was made. You remember we decided on that."