“Well, well! I am just in time,” remarked Uncle Wind, sauntering up the garden path, the flowers nodding to him as he passed. He had cast aside his great cloak, but even then looked a little warm. “Just wandered up from the Southlands,” he continued. “Yes, my little darling, it is true enough what you are telling Philippe, but of course we are not to be bossed about like ordinary servants; we serve and yet we keep our independence; we have been at our various tasks so long that we know exactly what to do without being told, and if we seem a little lazy at times, or a little too enthusiastic at others, remember that we may have our own very good reasons. Yes, indeed,” he went on, commencing to bluster a bit, “there are often reasons hidden in the strangest things we do. Did I ever tell you how once I mussed up the hair of a prince and ran off with the parasol of a duchess——” “The wind is capable of being a little monotonous at times,” Avril whispered into Philippe’s ear, but he could hardly hear her, for the garden was being filled with other voices, coming from here, there, and everywhere—from the grass, and the flowers, and the vegetables, and the trees, from the stones, and even from the brown earth itself, and they all were saying in their own way, the one thing: “We serve!” “Please listen to us a moment,” pleaded the fragile voices of the flowers. “We serve too, though many consider us too delicate and concerned about our own looks to be of much use. But do not forget us, Philippe! Do not forget us when you are grown up and your mind is crowded with worries and cares and a lot of things that will seem more important to you than they really are. Keep a place for us in your mind and heart, and we will repay you in our mysterious way a hundredfold and more. Do as we ask; treasure beauty, purity, and truth—for though you may love us now, you will not understand the full importance of our message until you have grown up. Do not forget——” “The flowers are very talkative to-day,” remarked one little lettuce to another. “The flattery of the bees has quite turned their heads,” agreed a radish who was notably sharp, whereupon some of the more sensitive flowers who had overheard blushed deeply. But Philippe heard none of this chatter of the vegetables, for it seemed that the whole world, the ox and the ass, the horse and the cow, the tame beasts of the fields and the wild beasts of the spaces beyond, the fox and the rabbit, the mouse and the beetle, the creatures that crawled and the creatures that ran, the cricket and the grasshopper and the inhabitants of air and ocean, the little hills and high hills, the valleys and forests, the voice of water through the land, sky and earth—all, _all_ were joining in a great, droning chant: “We serve—we serve—we serve——”