not the rarer flowers that I brought home, at first.  My hands were filled with Dandelions and Buttercups.  The Saint-John’s-Wort delighted me, and even the gaudy Sunflower.  I trained the vines which had been drooping round our old house,—­the gray time-worn house; the “natural-colored house,” the neighbors called it.  I thought of the blind boy who fancied the sound of the trumpet must be scarlet, as I trained up the brilliant scarlet trumpet-flower which my sister had planted long ago.

So the summer passed away.  My companions and neighbors did not wonder much, that, after studying so many books, I should begin to study flowers and botany.  And November came.  My occupation was not yet taken away, for Golden-Rod and the Asters gleamed along the dusty roadside, and still underneath the Maples there lay a sunny glow from the yellow leaves not yet withered beneath them.

One day I received a summons from our overseer, Mr. Clarkson, to visit him in the evening.  I went, a little disturbed, lest he might have some complaint to make of the engrossing nature of my present occupations.  This I was almost led to believe, from the way in which he began to speak to me.  His perorations, to be sure, were apt to be far wide of his subject; and this time, as usual, I could allow him two or three minutes’ talk before it became necessary for me to give him my attention.

At last it came out.  I was wanted to go up to Boston about a marvellous piece of carpet which had appeared from our mills.  It had lain in the warehouse some time, had at last been taken to Boston, and a large portion of it had been sold, the pattern being a favorite one.  But suddenly there had been a change.  In opening one of the rolls and spreading it broadly in the show-room of Messrs. Gobelin’s warehouse, it had appeared the most wonderful carpet that ever was known.  A real sunlight gleamed over the leaves and flowers, seeming to flicker and dance among them as on a broad meadow.  It shed a radiance which paled the light that struggled down between the brick walls through the high windows.  It had been subject of such wonder that Messrs. Gobelin had been obliged to ask a high price of admission for the many that flocked to see it.  They had eagerly examined the other rolls of carpeting, in the hope of finding a repetition of the wonder, and were inclined at one time to believe that this magical effect was owing to a new method of lighting their apartments.  But it was only in this beautiful pattern and through a certain portion of it that this wonderful appearance was shown.  Some weeks ago they had sent to our agent to ask if he knew the origin of this wonderful tapestry.  He had consulted with the designer of the pattern, who had first claimed the discovery of the combination of colors by which such an effect was produced, but he could not account for its not appearing throughout the whole work.  My master had then examined some of the workmen, and learned, in the midst of his inquiries, what had been my late occupations and studies.