"We all are glad to see you," said a Tulip, "for we never have anyone to talk to." "I never knew before that you could talk," said Martha. "Of course we can," said the Rose, "but we are tired of telling stories to one another." "Oh! can you tell stories?" asked Martha as she seated herself on the ground beside the flowers. "Yes, indeed!" said the Rose. "I'll tell mine first." "Did you ever hear how the Rose happened to have thorns?" she asked. Martha said she never did, and the Rose said, "I will tell you." "Before I bloomed here I lived in the warm climates, and although you may not think it I also lived in the land where Jack Frost dwells. But I love best the land where the nightingale lives and tells me of his love. One night when he was singing and telling me that my perfume was the sweetest in the garden and my damask cheek the softest, a Thorn Bush which grew near and had tried many times to win him from me began to tell how sweet were his notes and how graceful his form." "'Do come and sing in my bush,' she said, 'and let me show you how strong I am. You will be safer in my bush than on the swaying branches of the Rose.' "But the nightingale would not leave me, and told the Thorn Bush it was far too bold and its sharp points far too treacherous. 'You are not so fragrant as the Rose,' he said, 'and my love is all for her.' "'You shall pay for this,' screamed the Thorn Bush, angrily, 'and you will find that your beautiful Rose has thorns as well as I.' But the nightingale only sang lower and more sweetly to me, and we forgot the Thorn Bush in our happiness. "The cruel Thorn, however, did not forget or forgive, and one day she twined herself around my roots and pressed into my tender stems until she was a part of me. I tried to cry out, but her strength was greater than mine. That night, when the nightingale came to sing his love song, she raised one of her sharp thorns and pierced his foot. "'You see your beautiful Rose has hidden thorns,' she said, 'and she is no more to be desired than I am.' "'I should be a poor lover were I not willing to suffer for the one I love,' replied the nightingale as he came closer and sang to me even in his pain. "'I will always love you,' he said; 'I know you are not to blame for the thorns you wear, and that my love for you brought this upon you. I will never leave you.' And he sang to me all through the night, and in the morning a deep, red Rose bloomed where the nightingale's bleeding foot had rested, and the Thorn Bush was more angry than ever when she beheld its beauty. "'You shall never be free,' she said to me; 'every Rose shall wear a thorn.' "The nightingale still sings to me and never fails to tell me of his undying love." "That is a very pretty story," said Martha as the Rose finished, "and I am glad to know about that Thorn, for I have wondered many times why a flower so beautiful as you had that sharp point under your soft leaves."