62 Lily and Water-Lily.

 

She little knew what-she was going to attempt, and
there was nobody by to warn her.

Ruby, who should have been her protector, had
fallen once more under the influence of the fatal
poppies, and was lost to her.

If she had known in what danger he was; if she
had known that he had taken one of those dangerous
flowers to his heart, and that even now he was suck-
ing in that deadening sleep from its strange purple
petals ;—if she had known it, perhaps she might even
have forgotten herself in her anxiety to awaken
Ruby. -

But she did not know it any more than Ruby
knew that she was meditating such a dreadful step as
she now thought of, standing there and holding out
her hands towards the towering cliff.

If she could but have understood what they said,
‘there were friends by even now who were warning
her ; but she had lost the keenness of her hearing for
the voices of beasts and birds and flowers, and she
‘did not hear what they whispered.