The boy sat on a big stone, which once must have had some part in the house itself, or its defences, but which he had never known except as a seat for himself.

His back leaned against the hoary wall, and he was in truth meditating, although he did not look as if he were.

He was already more than an incipient philosopher, though he could not yet have put into recognizable shape the thought that was now passing through his mind.

The bees were the primary but not the main subject of it.

It came thus: he thought how glad the bees would be when their crop of heather was ripe; then he thought how they preferred the heather to the flowers; then, that the one must taste nicer to them than the other; and last awoke the question whether their taste of sweet was the same as his.