Beth pondered upon this for a little, then she asked, "Do you know which I like best? Hot primroses." Captain Caldwell raised his eyebrows interrogatively. "When you pick them in the sun, and put them against your cheek, they're all warm, you know," Beth explained; "and then they _are_ good! And fuchsias are good too, but it isn't the same good. You know that one in the sitting-room window, white outside and salmon-coloured inside, and such a nice shape--the flowers--and the way they hang down; you have to lift them to look into them. When I look at them long, they make me feel--oh--feel, you know--feel that I could take the whole plant in my arms and hug it. But fuchsias don't scent sweet like hot primroses." "And therefore they are not so good?" her father suggested, greatly interested in the child's attempt to express herself. "They say that the scent is the soul of the flower." "The scent is the soul of the flower," Beth repeated several times; then heaved a deep sigh of satisfaction. "I want to sing it," she said. "I always want to sing things like that." "What other 'things like that' do you know, Beth?" "The song of the sea in the shell, The swish of the grass in the breeze, The sound of a far-away bell, The whispering leaves on the trees," Beth burst out instantly. "Who taught you that, Beth?" her father asked. "Oh, no one taught me, papa," she answered. "It just came to me--like this, you know. I used to listen to the sea in that shell in the sitting-room, and I tried and tried to find a name for the sound, and all at once _song_ came into my head--_The song of the sea in the shell_. Then I was lying out here on the grass when it was long, before you cut it to make hay, and you came out and said, 'There's a stiff breeze blowing.' And it blew hard and then stopped, and then it came again; and every time it came the grass went--swish-h-h! _The swish of the grass in the breeze._ Then you know that bell that rings a long way off, you can only just hear it out here--_The sound of a far-away bell_. Then the leaves--it _was_ a long time before anything came that I could sing about them. I used to try and think it, but you can't sing a thing you think. It's when a thing comes, you can sing it. I was always listening to the leaves, and I always felt they were doing something; then all at once it came one day. Of course they were whispering--_The whispering leaves on the trees_. That was how they came, papa. At first I used to sing them by themselves; but now I sing them all together. You can sing them three different ways--the way I did first, you know, then you can put _breeze_ first-- The swish of the grass in the breeze, The whispering leaves on the trees, The song of the sea in the shell, The sound of a far-away bell. Or you can sing-- The sound of a far-away bell, The whispering leaves on the trees, The swish of the grass in the breeze, The song of the sea in the shell.