"Dear me, how stupid it must be to be a water-lily!" it said, and peeped up at the flower. "You chatter as a person of your small mind might be expected to do," answered the water-lily. "It is just the very nicest thing there is." "I don't understand that," said the larva. "I should like at this moment to tear myself away, and fly about in the air like the big, beautiful dragon-flies." "Pooh!" said the water-lily. "That would be a funny kind of pleasure. No; to lie still on the water and dream, to bask in the sun, and now and then to be rocked up and down by the waves--there's some sense in _that_!" The larva sat thinking for a minute or two. "I have a longing for something greater," it said at last. "If I had my will, I would be a dragon-fly. I would fly on strong, stiff wings along the stream, kiss your white flower, rest a moment on your leaves, and then fly on." "You are ambitious," answered the water-lily, "and that is stupid of you. One knows what one has, but one does not know what one may get. May I, by the way, make so bold as to ask you how you would set about becoming a dragon-fly? You don't look as if that was what you were born for. In any case you will have to grow a little prettier, you gray, ugly thing." "Yes, that is the worst part of it," the larva answered sadly. "I don't know myself how it will come about, but I hope it _will_ come about some time or other. That is why I crawl about down here and eat all the little creatures I can get hold of." "Then you think you can attain to something great _by feeding_!" the water-lily said, with a laugh. "That would be a funny way of getting up in the world." "Yes; but I believe it is the right way for me!" cried the dragon-fly grub earnestly. "All day long I go on eating till I get fat and big; and one fine day, as I think, all my fat will turn into wings with gold on them, and everything else that belongs to a proper dragon-fly!" The water-lily shook its clever white head. "Put away your silly thoughts," it said, "and be content with your lot. You can knock about undisturbed down here among my leaves, and crawl up and down the stalk to your heart's desire. You have everything that you need, and no cares or worries--what more do you want?" "You are of a low nature," answered the larva, "and therefore you have no sense of higher things. In spite of what you say, I wish to become a dragon-fly." And then it crawled right down to the bottom of the water to catch more creatures and stuff itself still bigger. But the water-lily lay quietly on the water and thought things over.