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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairy Book, by Sophie May
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fairy Book
+
+Author: Sophie May
+
+Release Date: November 24, 2008 [EBook #27321]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY BOOK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Sam W. and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from scanned images of public domain material
+from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+            LITTLE PRUDY SERIES.
+
+
+                 FAIRY BOOK.
+
+                     BY
+
+                 SOPHIE MAY.
+
+
+                  BOSTON:
+              LEE AND SHEPARD,
+  (SUCCESSORS TO PHILLIPS, SAMPSON, & CO.)
+                   1866.
+
+
+
+
+  Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by
+                         LEE & SHEPARD,
+  In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District
+                       of Massachusetts.
+
+
+
+
+    [Illustration: CRISTOBAL. Page 32.]
+
+
+
+
+         THIS
+  BOOK OF FAIRY TALES
+     IS DEDICATED
+   TO LITTLE BESSIE.
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE PRUDY SERIES.
+
+BY SOPHIE MAY.
+
+
+    I.
+    LITTLE PRUDY.
+
+    II.
+    LITTLE PRUDY'S SISTER SUSY.
+
+    III.
+    LITTLE PRUDY'S CAPTAIN HORACE.
+
+    IV.
+    LITTLE PRUDY'S COUSIN GRACIE.
+
+    V.
+    LITTLE PRUDY'S STORY BOOK.
+
+    VI.
+    LITTLE PRUDY'S DOTTY DIMPLE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                      PAGE
+    INTRODUCTION                         9
+
+    CRISTOBAL                           19
+
+    WILD ROBIN                          35
+
+    THE VESPER STAR                     53
+
+    THE WATER-KELPIE                    59
+
+    THE LOST SYLPHID                    74
+
+    THE CASTLE OF GEMS                 100
+
+    THE ELF OF LIGHT                   117
+
+    THE PRINCESS HILDA                 137
+
+    GOLDILOCKS                         160
+
+
+
+
+FAIRY BOOK.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+While Prudy was in Indiana visiting the Cliffords, and in the midst of
+her trials with mosquitoes, she said one day,--
+
+"I wouldn't cry, Aunt 'Ria, only my heart's breaking. The very next
+person that ever dies, I wish they'd ask God to please stop sending
+these awful skeeters. I can't bear 'em any longer, now, certainly."
+
+There was a look of utter despair on Prudy's disfigured face. Bitter
+tears were trickling from the two white puff-balls which had been her
+eyes; her forehead and cheeks were of a flaming pink, broken into
+little snow-drifts full of stings: she looked as if she had just been
+rescued from an angry beehive. Altogether, her appearance was
+exceedingly droll; yet Grace would not allow herself to smile at her
+afflicted little cousin. "Strange," said she, "what makes our
+mosquitoes so impolite to strangers! It's a downright shame, isn't it,
+ma, to have little Prudy so imposed upon? If I could only amuse her,
+and make her forget it!"
+
+"Oh, mamma," Grace broke forth again suddenly, "I have an idea, a very
+brilliant idea! Please listen, and pay particular attention; for I
+shall speak _in a figure_, as Robin says. There's a certain small
+individual who is not to understand."
+
+"I wouldn't risk that style of talking," said Mrs. Clifford, smiling;
+"or, if you do, your figures of speech must be _very_ obscure,
+remember."
+
+"Well, ma," continued Grace with a significant glance at Prudy, "what
+I was going to say is this: We wish to treat certain young relatives
+of ours very kindly; don't we, now?--certain afflicted and abused
+young relatives, you know.
+
+"Now, I've thought of an entertainment. Ahem! Yesterday I entered a
+certain Englishman's house,"--here Grace pointed through the window
+towards Mr. Sherwood's cottage, lest her mother should, by chance,
+lose her meaning,--"I entered a certain Englishman's house just as the
+family were sitting down to the table,--_festal board_, I mean.
+
+"They were talking about mistle-toe boughs, and all sorts of old-country
+customs; and then they said what a funny time they had one Christmas,
+with the youngest, about the _mizzle_, as he called it: do you remember,
+ma? do you understand?"
+
+"You mean little Harvey? Oh, yes."
+
+"Pray do be careful, ma! Then Mr. Sherwood said to his--I mean, the _hat_
+said to the _bonnet_, that there were some wonderful--ahem--legends,
+about genii and sprites and--and so forth; not printed, but _written_,
+which the boy liked to hear when he was 'overgetting' the measles. A
+certain lady, not three inches from your chair, ma, was the one who wrote
+them; and now"--
+
+Prudy had turned about, and the only remnants of her face which looked
+at all natural--that is, the irises and pupils of her swollen
+eyes--were shining with curiosity.
+
+"There, now, what is it, Gracie? what is it you don't want me to
+hear?"
+
+Grace laughed. "Oh, nothing much, dear: never mind."
+
+"You oughtn't to say 'Never mind,'" pursued Prudy: "my mother tells me
+_always_ to mind."
+
+"I only mean it isn't any matter, Prudy."
+
+"Oh! do you? Then don't you care for my skeeter-bites? You always say,
+'Never mind!' I didn't know it wasn't _any matter_."
+
+"Now, ma," Grace went on, "I want to ask you where are those
+I-don't-know-what-to-call-'ems? And may I copy them, Cassy and I, into
+a book, for a certain afflicted relative?"
+
+"Yes, yes, on gold-edged paper!" cried Prudy, springing up from the
+sofa; "oh, do, do; I'll love you dearly if you will! Fairy stories are
+just as nice! What little Harvey Sherwood likes, _I_ like, and I've
+had the measles; _but_ I shouldn't think his father and mother'd wear
+their hat and bonnet to the dinner-table!"
+
+"Deary me!" laughed Grace; "how happened that little thing to mistrust
+what I meant?"
+
+"It would be strange if a child of her age, of ordinary abilities,
+should _not_ understand," remarked Mrs. Clifford, somewhat amused.
+"Next time you wish to ask me any thing confidentially, I advise you
+to choose a better opportunity."
+
+"When may she, Aunt 'Ria?" cried Prudy, entirely forgetting her
+troubles; "when may she write it, Aunt 'Ria, she and Cassy?"
+
+"A pretty piece of folly it would be, wouldn't it, dear, when you
+can't read a word of writing?"
+
+"But Susy can a little, auntie; and mother can a great deal: and I'll
+never tease 'em, only nights when I go to bed, and days when I don't
+feel well. Please, Aunt 'Ria."
+
+"Yes, ma, I know you can't refuse," said Grace.
+
+Mrs. Clifford hesitated. "The stories are yellow with age, Grace;
+they were written in my girlhood: and they are rather torn and
+disarranged, if I remember. Besides, my child, my flowing hand is
+difficult to read."
+
+"Oh, mamma, I think you write beautifully! splendidly!"
+
+"Another objection," continued Mrs. Clifford: "they are rather too old
+for Prudy, I should judge."
+
+"But I keep a-growing, Aunt 'Ria! Don't you s'pose I know what fairy
+stories mean? They don't mean any thing! You didn't feel afraid I'd
+believe 'em, did you? I wouldn't believe 'em, I _promise_ I wouldn't;
+just as true's I'm walking on this floor!"
+
+"Indeed, I hope you would not, little Prudy; for I made them up as I
+went along. There are no fairies but those we have in our hearts. Our
+best thoughts are good fairies; and our worst thoughts are evil
+fairies."
+
+"Oh, yes, auntie, I know! When we go bathing in the ocean, Susy says,
+'Let's be all clean, so the spirit of the water can enter our hearts.'
+And it does; but it goes in by our noses."
+
+Mrs. Clifford had tacitly given her consent to Grace's copying the
+stories. This task was performed accordingly, much to the disgust of
+Horace, who declared that of the whole number only the tale of "Wild
+Robin" was worth reading.
+
+"And 'Wild Robin,'" said Grace, instructively, "is the only one that
+has a moral for you, Horace. When our soldiers are starving so, it is
+really dreadful to see how you dislike corned beef and despise
+vegetables! Such a dainty boy as you needs to be stolen a while by the
+fairies."
+
+"Well, Gracie, I reckon you'd run double-quick to pull me off the
+milk-white steed. You couldn't get along without me two days. Look
+here! what story has a moral for you, miss? It's the 'Water-kelpie.'
+You are like the man that married Moneta: you're always wanting
+money."
+
+"But it's for the soldiers, Horace," said Grace, with a smile of
+forbearance toward her brother. "I'm willing to give all my
+pocket-money; and I mean the other girls shall. If we're stingy to our
+country these days, we ought to be shot! 'Princess Hilda's' the best
+story in the book. I wish Isa Harrington could read it! She wouldn't
+make any more mischief between Cassy and me!"
+
+"I like 'The Lost Sylphid' the best," said Prudy; "but _was_ she a
+great butterfly, do you s'pose? The stories are all just as nice; just
+like book stories. I shouldn't think anybody made 'em up. Aunt 'Ria
+can write as good as the big girls to the grammar-school. I promised
+not to believe a single word; and I sha'n't. I'm glad she called it
+_my_ Fairy Book."
+
+
+
+
+CRISTOBAL.
+
+A CHRISTMAS LEGEND.
+
+
+Long ago, in fair Burgundy, lived a lad named Cristobal. His large
+dark eyes lay under the fringe of his lids, full of shadows; eyes as
+lustrous as purple amethysts, and, alas! as sightless.
+
+He had not always been blind, as perhaps a wild and passionate lad,
+named Jasper, might have told you. On a certain Christmas Eve, a merry
+boy was little Cristobal, as he pattered along to church, trying with
+his wooden shoes to keep time to the dancing bells. In his hand he
+carried a Christmas candle of various colors. Never, he thought, was
+a rainbow so exquisitely tinted as that candle. Carefully he watched
+it when it winked its sleepy eye, eagerly begging his mamma to snuff
+it awake again. How gayly the streets twinkled with midnight lanterns!
+And how mortifying to the stars to be outdone by such a grand
+illumination!
+
+A new painting had just been hung in the church,--the Holy Child,
+called by the people "Little Jesus," with an aureola about his head.
+Cristobal looked at this picture with reverent delight; and, to his
+surprise, the Holy Child returned his gaze: wherever he went, the
+sweet, sorrowful eyes followed him. There was a wondrous charm in that
+pleading glance. Why was it so wistful? What had those deep eyes to
+say?
+
+The air was cloudy with the breath of frankincense and myrrh. Deep
+voices and the heavy organ sounded chants and anthems. There were
+prayers to the coming Messiah, and the sprinkling of holy water; and,
+at last, the midnight mass was ended.
+
+Then, in tumult and great haste, the people went home for
+merry-makings. Cristobal, eager to see what the Yule-log might have in
+store for him, rushed out of the church with careless speed, stumbling
+over a boy who stood in his way,--the haughty, insolent Jasper.
+Jasper's beautiful Christmas-candle was cracked in twenty pieces by
+his fall.
+
+"I'll teach you better manners, young peasant!" cried he, rushing upon
+Cristobal in a frenzy, and dealing fierce blows without mercy or
+reason.
+
+It was then that Cristobal's eyes went out like falling stars. Their
+lustre and beauty remained; but they were empty caskets, their vision
+gone.
+
+Then followed terrible anguish; and all Cristobal's mother could do
+was to hold her boy in her arms, and soothe him by singing. At last
+the fever was spent; but the pain still throbbed on, and sometimes
+seemed to burn into Cristobal's brain. He cried out again and again,
+"What right had that fierce Jasper to spring upon me so? I meant him
+no harm; and he knew it. Oh, I would like to see him chained in a den!
+He is like the wicked people who are turned into wolves at
+Christmas-tide. I would cry for joy if I could hear him groan with
+such pain as mine!"
+
+Poor Cristobal never hoped to see again. He carried in his mind
+pictures of cities and hamlets, of trees, flowers, and old familiar
+faces; but oftenest came Jasper's face, just as it had last glared on
+him with blood-thirsty eyes. It was a terrible countenance. Only one
+charm could dispel the horror,--the remembrance of the beautiful Child
+in the church. That picture blotted out every thing else. It was like
+the refrain in the Burgundy carols, "Noel, Noel," which comes again
+and again, and never tires of coming.
+
+A whole year passed away. Cristobal's mother only prayed now that her
+boy might suffer less: she had ceased to pray for the healing of his
+blindness.
+
+Now it was Christmas-tide again. Ever since Advent, people had been
+clearing their throats, and singing carols. They roasted chestnuts,
+drank white wine, and chanted praises of the "Little Jesus," who was
+soon to come, bringing peace on earth, good-will to men.
+
+In the streets, one heard bagpipes and minstrels; and, by the
+hearthstones, the music of the wandering piper. The children began to
+talk again of the Yule-log, and to wonder what gifts Noel would bring
+to place under each end of it; for these little folks, who have no
+stocking-saint like our Santa Claus, believe in another quite as good,
+who rains down sugar-plums in the night.
+
+Everywhere there was a joyful bustle. Housewives were making ready
+their choicest dishes for the great Christmas-supper; fathers were
+slyly peeping into shop-windows, and children hoarding their sous and
+centimes for bonbons and comfits.
+
+Everybody was merry but Cristobal; or so thought the lad. He had no
+money to spend, and little but pain for his holiday-cheer. A patch
+here and there in his worn clothes was the best present his thrifty
+mother was able to make; always excepting the little variegated taper,
+which few were too poor to buy.
+
+Christmas Eve came. Family friends dropped in. The Yule-log was set
+on the fire with shouts and singing. "Oh that I could see these kind
+faces!" moaned Cristobal. "No doubt, Jasper's chestnuts are popping
+merrily; and his shoes will be full of presents. And here am I! My
+head aches, and my eye-balls burn."
+
+He stole out of the room, and, throwing himself on a wicker bench,
+mused over his troubles in solitude. One might have supposed him
+sleeping; for how should one imagine that his beautiful eyes were of
+no manner of use, except when they were closed? When Cristobal said,
+"Let me see," he dropped his eye-lids; and what he saw then, no artist
+can paint.
+
+On this night, a beautiful child appeared before him, as like the
+picture of the Little Jesus as if it had stepped out of its frame on
+the church-wall. Even the crimson and blue tints of the old painting
+were faithfully preserved; and every fold of the soft drapery was the
+very same.
+
+"I saw you, Cristobal, when you came before me with your colored
+candle, one year ago."
+
+"I knew it, I knew it!" cried Cristobal, clasping his hands in awe. "I
+saw your eyes follow me; and I never once turned but you were looking.
+They told me it was only a picture; but I said for that very reason
+your eyes were sorrowful,--you longed to be alive."
+
+The child replied by a slight motion of the head; and the aureola
+trembled like sunlight on the water. The longer Cristobal gazed, the
+more courage he gathered. "Lovely vision," said he, "if vision you may
+be,--I have said to myself, I would gladly walk to Rome with peas in
+my shoes, if I could know what you wished to say to me that Christmas
+night."
+
+"Only this, little brother: Are you ready for Christmas?"
+
+"Alas! no: I never am. I have only two sous in the world."
+
+"Poor Cristobal! Yet, without a centime, one may be ready for
+Christmas."
+
+"But I am so very unhappy!"
+
+"You do indeed look sad, little brother: where is your pain?"
+
+"In my eyes," moaned the boy, pouring out the words with a delightful
+sense of relief; for he was sure they dropped into a pitying heart.
+"Beloved little Jesus, let me tell you that since I saw you last I
+have been wickedly injured. Now I have always a pain in my eyes: there
+are two flames behind them, which burn day and night."
+
+"I grieve for you," said the Child with exquisite tenderness; "yet,
+dear boy, for all that, you might be ready for Christmas: but is there
+not also a pain throbbing and burning in your _heart_?"
+
+"Oh, if you mean that, I am tossed up and down by vexation: I am full
+of hatred against that terrible Jasper. It was all about a miserable
+Christmas-candle he carried. I broke it by pushing him down. Tell me,
+was he right to fly at me like a wild beast? Ought he not to suffer
+even as I have suffered? Is it just, is it right, for the great man's
+son to put out a peasant boy's eyes, and be happy again?"
+
+"Misguided Jasper!" said the Child solemnly; "let him answer for his
+own sin: judge not, little brother."
+
+Cristobal hid his face in his hands, and wept for shame.
+
+"Shall I give you ten golden words for a Christmas-gift? Will you
+hide them in your heart, and be happy?"
+
+"I will," answered Cristobal.
+
+"They are these," said the Child with a voice of wondrous sweetness:
+"Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you."
+
+Cristobal repeated the words, a soft light stealing over his face. "I
+will remember," he said, looking up to meet the pleading eyes of the
+Child: but, lo! the whole face had melted into the aureola; nothing
+was left but light. Yet Cristobal was filled with a new joy; and, as
+he opened his eyes, his dream--if dream it were--changed, becoming as
+sweet and solemn as a prayer. It seemed to him that the roof of the
+cottage glittered with stars, and was no longer a roof, but the
+boundless sky; and, afar off, like remembered music, a voice fell on
+his ear, "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father
+will also forgive you your trespasses."
+
+Cristobal arose, and, although still blind, walked in light. "It is
+the aureola which has stolen into my heart," thought Cristobal. "The
+pain and hate are all gone. Now I am ready for Christmas. I wish I
+could help poor Jasper, who has such a weight of guilt to carry!"
+
+Next day, "golden-sided" Burgundy saw no happier boy than Cristobal.
+He walked in the procession that night, carrying a candle whose light
+he could not see; but what did it signify, since there was light in
+his soul?
+
+Hark! In the midst of the Christmas-chimes breaks the jangling of
+fire-bells. The count's house is on fire! The sparks pour out thicker
+and faster; tongues of flame leap to the sky; the bells clang
+hoarsely; the Christmas procession is broken into wild disorder; the
+wheels of the engine roll through the streets, unheard in the din.
+
+Cristobal rushed eagerly toward the flames, but was pulled away by the
+people.
+
+"We cannot drown the fire!" they cried: "the building must fall! Are
+the inmates all safe?"
+
+"All, thank Heaven!" cried the count.
+
+"No: _Jasper_! See, he waves his hand from the third story! Save him!
+save my boy!"
+
+Jasper had set fire to a curtain with his fatal Christmas-candle. Now
+he raved and shouted in vain: no one would venture up the ladder.
+
+"O Little Jesus," whispered Cristobal, "give light to my eyes, even as
+unto my soul! Let me save Jasper!"
+
+At once the iron band fell from Cristobal's vision. He saw, and, at
+the same moment, felt a supernatural strength. He tore away from the
+restraining arms of the people; he rushed up the ladder, shouting, "In
+the name of the Little Jesus!" He reached the window, heedless of his
+scorched arms. "Jasper!" he cried, seizing the half-conscious boy, "be
+not afraid: I have the strength to carry you."
+
+And down the ladder he bore him, step by step, through the crackling
+flames.
+
+Jasper was revived; and the fainting Cristobal was borne through the
+streets in the arms of the populace.
+
+"Wonder of wonders!" they all shouted.
+
+"It was the Little Jesus," gasped Cristobal: "he opened my eyes; he
+guided me up the ladder, and down again!"
+
+"Hallelujah!" was now the cry. "On the birthday of our Lord, the
+blind receive their sight."
+
+"It is a triumph of faith," said the saints reverently.
+
+"A miracle," murmured the nuns, making the sign of the cross.
+
+"Not a miracle," replied the wise doctors, after they had first
+consulted their books: "it is only the electrifying of the optic
+nerve."
+
+But hardly any two could agree, and what was so mysterious at the time
+is no clearer now.
+
+"Dear little Cristobal," sobbed the broken-hearted Jasper, "how could
+you forgive such a wicked boy as I?"
+
+"It was very easy," replied Cristobal, "when once the Little Jesus
+called me 'brother,' and bade me pray for you."
+
+"Oh that I could repay you for your wonderful deed of love," said
+Jasper, through his tears.
+
+"Do not thank me," whispered Cristobal, with a look of awe; "thank the
+Little Jesus. And when he comes again next year, to ask what feelings
+we hold in our hearts, let us both be ready for Christmas."
+
+
+
+
+WILD ROBIN.
+
+A SCOTTISH FAIRY TALE.
+
+
+In the green valley of the Yarrow, near the castle-keep of Norham,
+dwelt an honest, sonsy little family, whose only grief was an unhappy
+son, named Robin.
+
+Janet, with jimp form, bonnie eyes, and cherry cheeks, was the best of
+daughters; the boys, Sandie and Davie, were swift-footed, brave, kind,
+and obedient; but Robin, the youngest, had a stormy temper, and, when
+his will was crossed, he became as reckless as a reeling hurricane.
+Once, in a passion, he drove two of his father's "kye," or cattle,
+down a steep hill to their death. He seemed not to care for home or
+kindred, and often pierced the tender heart of his mother with sharp
+words. When she came at night, and "happed" the bed-clothes carefully
+about his form, and then stooped to kiss his nut-brown cheeks, he
+turned away with a frown, muttering, "Mither, let me be."
+
+It was a sad case with Wild Robin, who seemed to have neither love nor
+conscience.
+
+"My heart is sair," sighed his mother, "wi' greeting over sich a son."
+
+"He hates our auld cottage and our muckle wark," said the poor father.
+"Ah, weel! I could a'maist wish the fairies had him for a season, to
+teach him better manners."
+
+This the gudeman said heedlessly, little knowing there was any danger
+of Robin's being carried away to Elf-land. Whether the fairies were at
+that instant listening under the eaves, will never be known; but it
+chanced, one day, that Wild Robin was sent across the moors to fetch
+the kye.
+
+"I'll rin away," thought the boy: "'tis hard indeed if ilka day a
+great lad like me must mind the kye. I'll gae aff; and they'll think
+me dead."
+
+So he gaed, and he gaed, over round swelling hills, over old
+battle-fields, past the roofless ruins of houses whose walls were
+crowned with tall climbing grasses, till he came to a crystal sheet of
+water, called St. Mary's Loch. Here he paused to take breath. The sky
+was dull and lowering; but at his feet were yellow flowers, which
+shone, on that gray day, like freaks of sunshine.
+
+He threw himself wearily upon the grass, not heeding that he had
+chosen his couch within a little mossy circle known as a "fairy's
+ring." Wild Robin knew that the country people would say the fays had
+pressed that green circle with their light feet. He had heard all the
+Scottish lore of brownies, elves, will-o'-the-wisps, and the strange
+water-kelpies, who shriek with eldritch laughter. He had been told
+that the queen of the fairies had coveted him from his birth, and
+would have stolen him away, only that, just as she was about to seize
+him from the cradle, he had _sneezed_; and from that instant the
+fairy-spell was over, and she had no more control of him.
+
+Yet, in spite of all these stories, the boy was not afraid; and if he
+had been informed that any of the uncanny people were, even now,
+haunting his footsteps, he would not have believed it.
+
+"I see," said Wild Robin, "the sun is drawing his night-cap over his
+eyes, and dropping asleep. I believe I'll e'en take a nap mysel', and
+see what comes o' it."
+
+In two minutes he had forgotten St. Mary's Loch, the hills, the moors,
+the yellow flowers. He heard, or fancied he heard, his sister Janet
+calling him home.
+
+"And what have ye for supper?" he muttered between his teeth.
+
+"Parritch and milk," answered the lassie gently.
+
+"Parritch and milk! Whist! say nae mair! Lang, lang may ye wait for
+Wild Robin: he'll not gae back for oat-meal parritch!"
+
+Next a sad voice fell on his ear.
+
+"Mither's; and she mourns me dead!" thought he; but it was only the
+far-off village-bell, which sounded like the echo of music he had
+heard lang syne, but might never hear again.
+
+"D'ye think I'm not alive?" tolled the bell. "I sit all day in my
+little wooden temple, brooding over the sins of the parish."
+
+"A brazen lie!" cried Robin.
+
+"Nay, the truth, as I'm a living soul! Wae worth ye, Robin Telfer: ye
+think yersel' hardly used. Say, have your brithers softer beds than
+yours? Is your ain father served with larger potatoes or creamier
+buttermilk? Whose mither sae kind as yours, ungrateful chiel? Gae to
+Elf-land, Wild Robin; and dool and wae follow ye! dool and wae follow
+ye!"
+
+The round yellow sun had dropped behind the hills; the evening breezes
+began to blow; and now could be heard the faint trampling of small
+hoofs, and the tinkling of tiny bridle-bells: the fairies were
+trooping over the ground. First of all rode the queen.
+
+    "Her skirt was of the grass-green silk,
+      Her mantle of the velvet fine;
+    At ilka tress of her horse's mane
+      Hung fifty silver bells and nine."
+
+But Wild Robin's closed eyes saw nothing; his sleep-sealed ears heard
+nothing. The queen of fairies dismounted, stole up to him, and laid
+her soft fingers on his cheeks.
+
+"Here is a little man after my ain heart," said she: "I like his
+knitted brow, and the downward curve of his lips. Knights, lift him
+gently, set him on a red-roan steed, and waft him away to Fairy-land."
+
+Wild Robin was lifted as gently as a brown leaf borne by the wind; he
+rode as softly as if the red-roan steed had been saddled with satin,
+and shod with velvet. It even may be that the faint tinkling of the
+bridle-bells lulled him into a deeper slumber; for when he awoke it
+was morning in Fairy-land.
+
+Robin sprang from his mossy couch, and stared about him. Where was he?
+He rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Dreaming, no doubt; but what
+meant all these nimble little beings bustling hither and thither in
+hot haste? What meant these pearl-bedecked caves, scarcely larger than
+swallows' nests? these green canopies, overgrown with moss? He pinched
+himself, and gazed again. Countless flowers nodded to him, and seemed,
+like himself, on tiptoe with curiosity, he thought. He beckoned one of
+the busy, dwarfish little brownies toward him.
+
+"I ken I'm talking in my sleep," said the lad; "but can ye tell me
+what dell is this, and how I chanced to be in it?"
+
+The brownie might or might not have heard; but, at any rate, he
+deigned no reply, and went on with his task, which was pounding seeds
+in a stone mortar.
+
+"Am I Robin Telfer, of the Valley of Yarrow, and yet canna shake aff
+my silly dreams?"
+
+"Weel, my lad," quoth the queen of the fairies, giving him a smart tap
+with her wand, "stir yersel', and be at work; for naebody idles in
+Elf-land."
+
+Bewildered Robin ventured a look at the little queen. By daylight she
+seemed somewhat sleepy and tired; and was withal so tiny, that he
+might almost have taken her between his thumb and finger, and twirled
+her above his head; yet she poised herself before him on a
+mullein-stalk, and looked every inch a queen. Robin found her gaze
+oppressive; for her eyes were hard and cold and gray, as if they had
+been little orbs of granite.
+
+"Get ye to work, Wild Robin!"
+
+"What to do?" meekly asked the boy, hungrily glancing at a few kernels
+of rye which had rolled out of one of the brownie's mortars.
+
+"Are ye hungry, my laddie? touch a grain of rye if ye dare! Shell
+these dry bains; and if so be ye're starving, eat as many as ye can
+boil in an acorn-cup."
+
+With these words she gave the boy a withered bean-pod, and, summoning
+a meek little brownie, bade him see that the lad did not over-fill the
+acorn-cup, and that he did not so much as peck at a grain of rye.
+Then, glancing sternly at her unhappy prisoner, she withdrew, sweeping
+after her the long train of her green robe.
+
+The dull days crept by, and still there seemed no hope that Wild Robin
+would ever escape from his beautiful but detested prison. He had no
+wings, poor laddie; and he could neither become invisible nor draw
+himself through a keyhole bodily.
+
+It is true, he had mortal companions: many chubby babies; many
+bright-eyed boys and girls, whose distracted parents were still
+seeking them, far and wide, upon the earth. It would almost seem that
+the wonders of Fairy-land might make the little prisoners happy. There
+were countless treasures to be had for the taking, and the very dust
+in the little streets was precious with specks of gold: but the poor
+children shivered for the want of a mother's love; they all pined for
+the dear home-people. If a certain task seemed to them particularly
+irksome, the heartless queen was sure to find it out, and oblige them
+to perform it, day after day. If they disliked any article of food,
+that, and no other, were they forced to eat, or starve.
+
+Wild Robin, loathing his withered beans and unsalted broths, longed
+intensely for one little breath of fragrant steam from the toothsome
+parritch on his father's table, one glance at a roasted potato. He was
+homesick for the gentle sister he had neglected, the rough brothers
+whose cheeks he had pelted black and blue; and yearned for the very
+chinks in the walls, the very thatch on the home-roof.
+
+Gladly would he have given every fairy-flower, at the root of which
+clung a lump of gold ore, if he might have had his own coverlet
+"happed" about him once more by the gentle hands he had despised.
+
+"Mither," he whispered in his dreams, "my shoon are worn, and my feet
+bleed; but I'll soon creep hame, if I can. Keep the parritch warm for
+me."
+
+Robin was as strong as a mountain-goat; and his strength was put to
+the task of threshing rye, grinding oats and corn, or drawing water
+from a brook.
+
+Every night, troops of gay fairies and plodding brownies stole off on
+a visit to the upper world, leaving Robin and his companions in ever
+deeper despair. Poor Robin! he was fain to sing,--
+
+    "Oh that my father had ne'er on me smiled!
+      Oh that my mother had ne'er to me sung!
+    Oh that my cradle had never been rocked,
+      But that I had died when I was young!"
+
+Now, there was one good-natured brownie who pitied Robin. When he took
+a journey to earth with his fellow-brownies, he often threshed rye for
+the laddie's father, or churned butter in his good mother's dairy,
+unseen and unsuspected. If the little creature had been watched, and
+paid for these good offices, he would have left the farmhouse forever
+in sore displeasure.
+
+To homesick Robin he brought news of the family who mourned him as
+dead. He stole a silky tress of Janet's fair hair, and wondered to see
+the boy weep over it; for brotherly affection is a sentiment which
+never yet penetrated the heart of a brownie. The dull little sprite
+would gladly have helped the poor lad to his freedom, but told him
+that only on one night of the year was there the least hope, and that
+was on Hallow-e'en, when the whole nation of fairies ride in
+procession through the streets of earth.
+
+So Robin was instructed to spin a dream, which the kind brownie would
+hum in Janet's ear while she slept. By this means the lassie would not
+only learn that her brother was in the power of the elves, but would
+also learn how to release him.
+
+Accordingly, the night before Hallow-e'en, the bonnie Janet dreamed
+that the long-lost Robin was living in Elf-land, and that he was to
+pass through the streets with a cavalcade of fairies. But, alas! how
+should even a sister know him in the dim starlight, among the passing
+troops of elfish and mortal riders? The dream assured her that she
+might let the first company go by, and the second; but Robin would be
+one of the third:--
+
+    "First let pass the black, Janet,
+      And syne let pass the brown;
+    But grip ye to the milk-white steed,
+      And pull the rider down.
+
+    For _I_ ride on the milk-white steed,
+      And aye nearest the town:
+    Because I was a christened lad
+      They gave me that renown.
+
+    My right hand will be gloved, Janet;
+      My left hand will be bare;
+    And these the tokens I give thee:
+      No doubt I will be there.
+
+    They'll shape me in your arms, Janet,
+      A toad, snake, and an eel
+    But hold me fast, nor let me gang,
+      As you do love me weel.
+
+    They'll shape me in your arms, Janet,
+      A dove, bat, and a swan:
+    Cast your green mantle over me,
+      I'll be myself again."
+
+The good sister Janet, far from remembering any of the old sins of her
+brother, wept for joy to know that he was yet among the living. She
+told no one of her strange dream; but hastened secretly to the Miles
+Cross, saw the strange cavalcade pricking through the greenwood, and
+pulled down the rider on the milk-white steed, holding him fast
+through all his changing shapes. But when she had thrown her green
+mantle over him, and clasped him in her arms as her own brother
+Robin, the angry voice of the fairy queen was heard:--
+
+    "Up then spake the queen of fairies,
+      Out of a bush of rye,
+    'You've taken away the bonniest lad
+      In all my companie.
+
+    'Had I but had the wit, yestreen,
+      That I have learned to-day,
+    I'd pinned the sister to her bed
+      E're he'd been won away!'"
+
+However, it was too late now. Wild Robin was safe, and the elves had
+lost their power over him forever. His forgiving parents and his
+leal-hearted brothers welcomed him home with more than the old love.
+
+So grateful and happy was the poor laddie, that he nevermore grumbled
+at his oat-meal parritch, or minded his kye with a scowling brow.
+
+But to the end of his days, when he heard mention of fairies and
+brownies, his mind wandered off in a mizmaze. He died in peace, and
+was buried on the banks of the Yarrow.
+
+
+
+
+THE VESPER STAR.
+
+
+Once upon a time, the new moon was shining like a silver bow in the
+heavens, and the stars glittered and trembled as if they were afraid.
+
+"What frightens you?" said the placid Moon; "be calm, like me."
+
+"I am freezing," answered the North Star; "that is why I shake."
+
+"We are dancing," said the Seven Sisters; "and, watch as closely as
+you please, you can never get a fair peep at our golden sandals, our
+feet twinkle so."
+
+"I am sleepy," grumbled the Great Bear; "I am trying to keep my eyes
+open. Perhaps that is the reason I wink so much."
+
+Thus, with one accord, they made excuses to the pale Moon, who is
+their guardian,--all but the sweet Vesper Star: she was silent; and
+when a white cloud floated by, she was glad of an excuse to hide her
+face.
+
+"Let the North Star shiver, and the Seven Sisters dance, and all the
+golden stars hold a revel," thought she; "as for me, I am sad."
+
+For you must know that the Vesper Star has a task to perform, and is
+not allowed to sleep. She keeps vigil over the Earth, by night; and
+never ceases her watch till the world is up in the morning. For the
+sick and sad, who cannot sleep, she feels an unutterable pity, so that
+her heart is always throbbing with sorrow.
+
+The Moon looked at the Vesper Star, and said, "Dream on, sweet sister;
+for you, the noblest of all, have told me no falsehood."
+
+This the Moon said because she knew that none of the stars had given
+a true reason for twinkling so gayly that night. The truth was, they
+were filled with envy, and were trying to be as brilliant as possible,
+to compete with a flaming Comet which had just appeared in the sky.
+
+It is not for man to know how long and how peacefully the gentle stars
+had travelled together, doing the work which God has appointed,
+without a murmur. But now that this distinguished stranger had
+arrived, the whole firmament was in dismay. How proudly he strode the
+heavens! how his blaze illumined the sky! The Stars whispered one to
+another, and cast angry eyes on the shining wonder.
+
+"Make way for me," he said, sweeping after him a glorious train of
+light.
+
+"Not I," muttered the fiery Mars.
+
+"Not I," quoth the majestic Jupiter; "I do not move an inch."
+
+The Comet flashed with a lofty disdain.
+
+"Puny Stars," said he, "keep your places, give out all your
+light,--nobody heeds you; the place of honor is always by the Vesper
+Star; here I make my throne."
+
+The Vesper Star smiled sadly, but without a twinge of envy.
+
+"Welcome, shining one! Warm me with your fires; let us work together."
+
+"Work!" cried the Comet, throwing out sparkles of scorn; "I was not
+born to work, but to _shine_!"
+
+"Indeed!" said the Vesper Star; "you have come into strange company,
+then; for here we all work with a good will." "He does not burn with
+the true fire," thought the good Star; and she wrapped herself about
+with a soft cloud, and said no more.
+
+"Oh that I could be set on fire like the Comet!" thought the cold
+North Star. "I would gladly burn to death if I could astonish the
+world with my blaze!"
+
+"Let us die!" said the Seven Sisters; "let us die together; we have
+ceased to be noticed."
+
+"Ah, hum!" growled the Great Bear; "so many years as I have kept watch
+in this sky; and now to be set one side by this upstart of a
+foreigner! I've a great mind to go to sleep and never wake up!"
+
+"Hush!" whispered the Vesper Star gently; "do your duty, and trust God
+for the rest."
+
+And lo! that very night there was an end of the Comet's splendor.
+
+"Adieu, my dull friends," said he; "I am tired of a quiet life: a
+little more, and I should fade out entirely!"
+
+Then, with a blaze and a whiz, and a dizzy wheel, he flashed out of
+the sky; and no one knew whither he went, or whence he came, any more
+than the path of the quick lightning.
+
+The stars were ashamed of their envy, and went to their old work with
+a stronger will and a steadier purpose: but to the Vesper Star was
+given a brighter and sweeter light than to any other, because she had
+done her work without envy and without repining.
+
+
+
+
+THE WATER-KELPIE.
+
+
+Once there lived under the earth a race of fairies called gnomes. They
+were strange little beings, with dull eyes and harsh voices; but they
+did no harm, and lived in peace.
+
+They never saw the sun; but they had lamps much brighter than our
+gaslight, which burned night and day, year after year.
+
+They had music; but it was the tinkling of silver bells and golden
+harps,--not half so sweet as the singing of birds and the babbling of
+brooks.
+
+Flowers they had none, but plenty of gems,--"the stars of earth."
+There were green trees in the kingdom: but the leaves were hard
+emeralds; and the fruit, apples of gold or cherries of ruby; and these
+precious gems the gnomes ground to powder, and swallowed with much
+satisfaction.
+
+They heaped up piles of gold and diamonds as high as your head; and
+never was there a gnome so poor as to build a house of any thing a
+whit coarser than jasper or onyx. You would have believed yourself
+dreaming, if you could have walked through the streets of their
+cities. They were paved with rosy almandine and snowy alabaster; and
+the palaces glittered in the gay lamplight like a million stars.
+
+These gnomes led, for the most part, rather dull lives. Like their
+cousins, the water-sprites, or undines, they were roguish and shrewd,
+but had no higher views of life than our katydids and crickets.
+Indeed, they hardly cared for any thing but frisking about, eating
+and sleeping. But, after all, what can be expected of creatures
+without souls? One sees, now and then, stupid human beings, whose eyes
+have no thoughts in them, and whose souls seem to be sound asleep.
+Such lumps of dulness might almost as well be gnomes, and slip into
+the earth and have done with it.
+
+These underground folk had a great horror of our world. They knew all
+about it; for one of them had peeped out and taken a bird's-eye view.
+He went up very bravely, but hurried back with such strange accounts,
+that his friends considered him a little insane.
+
+"Listen!" said the gnome, whose name was Clod. "The earth has a soft
+carpet, of a new kind of emerald; overhead is a blue roof, made of
+turquoise; but I am told that there is a crack in it, and sometimes
+water comes pouring down in torrents. But the worst plague of all is
+a great glaring eye-ball of fire, which mortals call the sun."
+
+When Clod told his stories of the earth, he always ended by saying,--
+
+"Believe me, it is bad luck to have the sun shine on you. It nearly
+put my eyes out; and I have had the headache ever since."
+
+Now, there was a young girl, named Moneta, who listened very eagerly
+to the old gnome's stories of the earth, and thought she would like to
+see it for herself. She was a kind little maiden, as playful as a
+kitten; and her friends were not willing she should go. But Moneta had
+somewhere heard that fairies who marry mortals receive the gift of a
+human soul: so, in spite of all objections, she was resolved to take
+the journey; for she had in her dark mind some vague aspirations after
+a higher state of being.
+
+Then the gnome-family declared, that, if she once went away, they
+would never allow her to return; for they highly disapproved of
+running backward and forward between the two worlds, gossiping.
+
+"Have you no love of country," cried they, "that you would willingly
+cast your lot among silly creatures who look down upon your race?"
+
+The old gnome, who had travelled, took the romantic maiden one side,
+and said,--
+
+"My dear Moneta, since you _will_ go, I must tell you a secret; for
+you remember I have seen the world, and know all about it. Mortals are
+a higher race than ourselves, it is true; but that is only because
+they live atop o' the earth, while we are under their feet. They make
+a great parade about their little ticking jewel they call Conscience;
+but, after all, they will any of them sell it for one of our
+ear-rings! I assure you they love money better than their own souls;
+and I would advise you, as a friend that has seen the world, to load
+yourself with as much gold as you can carry."
+
+So Moneta donned a heavy dress of spun gold, which was woven in such a
+manner, that, at every motion she made, it let fall a shower of
+gold-dust. She filled the sleeves with sardonyx, almandine, and
+amethyst; and hid in her bosom diamonds and sapphires enough to
+purchase a kingdom.
+
+Then she went up a steep ladder, and knocked on the alabaster ceiling,
+using the charm which the gnome had given her:--
+
+"Mother Earth, Mother Earth, set me free!"
+
+At her words there was a sound as of an earthquake, and a little space
+was made, just large enough for her to crawl through. When she had
+reached the top, the earth closed again, and she was left seated upon
+a rock; and the light of the sun was so dazzling, that she hid her
+face in her hands.
+
+Thus she sat for a long time, not knowing whither to go, till a young
+man chanced to come that way, who said, "What do you here?"
+
+She raised her face at his words, and could not speak, so great was
+her surprise at the beauty of the strange youth. He, for his part,
+could not help smiling; for she was as yellow as an orange; and an
+uglier little creature he had never beheld: but he said in a kind
+voice,--
+
+"Come with me to my mother's house, and you shall be refreshed with
+cake and wine."
+
+She arose to follow him; and, as she walked, a bright shower of
+gold-dust sprinkled the earth at every step.
+
+The young man held out his hands eagerly to catch the shining spray,
+thinking he would like such a rarely-gifted damsel for his wife; and,
+in truth, he smiled so sweetly, and dropped such winning words, that
+in time he won her heart and she became his bride.
+
+    "And, when she cam' into the kirk,
+      She shimmered like the sun;
+    The belt that was about her waist
+      Was a' with pearles bedone."
+
+So great was her love for him, that she forgot her lost home under the
+earth; and every day, when she bade her husband "good-morning," she
+placed in his hand a precious stone; and he kissed her, calling her
+his "dear Moneta," his "heart's jewel." But at last the diamonds,
+sapphires, and rubies were all gone; and she was also losing the power
+of shedding gold-dust. Then her husband frowned on her, and no longer
+called her his "heart's jewel," or his "dear Moneta."
+
+At length she presented him with a little daughter as lovely as a
+water-sprite, with hair like threads of gold. Now the father watched
+the babe with a greedy eye; for its mother had wept precious tears of
+molten gold before she received the gift of human grief, and he hoped
+her child would do the same; but, when he found it was only a common
+mortal, he shut his heart against the babe. Moneta was no longer
+yellow and ugly, but very beautiful; with deep eyes, out of which
+looked a sweet soul: yet she had lost her fairy gifts, and her husband
+had ceased to love her. The good woman mourned in secret; and would
+have wished to die, only her precious child comforted her heart.
+
+One day, as she was sitting by the shore of the lake, a water-kelpie
+saw her weeping, and came to her in the form of a white-haired old
+man, saying,--
+
+"Charming lady! why do you weep? Come with me to my kingdom under the
+waters. My people are always happy."
+
+Then she looked where he bade her, and saw, afar down under the
+waters, a beautiful city, whose streets were paved with red and white
+coral.
+
+The kelpie said, "Will you go down?"
+
+"No," sighed Moneta, thinking of the kind words her husband had
+sometimes spoken to her: "I cannot go yet."
+
+But the kelpie came every day, repeating the question, "Will you go
+now?" and she answered, "I cannot go yet."
+
+But at last her husband said,--
+
+"How often the thought comes to me, If I had no wife and child, all
+this gold would be mine!" and he knitted his brows with a frown.
+
+Then Moneta looked in his face, and said,--
+
+"Dear Ivan, I have loved you truly; but you no longer care for Moneta.
+I will go away with the little child, and all our gold shall be yours.
+Farewell!"
+
+Then she embraced him with falling tears. His heart was stirred within
+him; and he would have followed her, only he knew not which way she
+had gone.
+
+Soon the water-kelpie came to him in the form of a horse; and ran
+before him, neighing fiercely, and breathing fire from his mouth. This
+is the way kelpies take to announce the fact that some one has gone
+under the water.
+
+So the man followed the kelpie. His heart was swelling with grief;
+and all his love for his wife and child had come back to him.
+
+He looked into the lake, and saw the fair city. In a transparent
+palace Moneta was sitting, crowned with pearls, the child sleeping on
+her bosom. He shouted,--
+
+"Come back, O Moneta!" but she heard him not.
+
+He went every day to the same spot, never leaving it until the water
+was clear, and he had seen his wife and child. He cared no more for
+his fine castle and his gold; for the castle was empty, and the gold
+could not speak.
+
+"Alas," cried he, "if I could listen to the music of Moneta's voice!
+if I could hold the child in my arms once more!"
+
+Now he cared for nothing but to gaze into the waters at Moneta and her
+child.
+
+One day, the water-kelpie appeared to him in the form of an old man.
+
+    [Illustration: THE WATER-KELPIE. Page 70.]
+
+"Why sit you here, sighing like the north wind?" said the kelpie.
+
+"I have loved gold better than my best friends," replied Ivan; "and
+now my best friends are taken away from me, and the gold is left; but
+I love it no longer."
+
+"Ah, ah!" growled the kelpie; "I have heard of such men as you:
+nothing is dear till it is missed. You should have thought of that
+before. If your lost ones were to return, you would treat them as
+badly as ever, no doubt."
+
+"No, no," groaned Ivan; "I would love them better than all the wealth
+in the world! I would love them better than my own life! Ah, the sting
+it is to think of my own ingratitude!"
+
+"Hold!" said the kelpie: "grumble to yourself if you like, but don't
+vex my ears with your complaints. Suppose I were to bring back Moneta
+and the child,--would you give me your chests of gold?"
+
+"That I will," cried the man, "right joyfully."
+
+"Not so fast: will you give me your castle as well?"
+
+"Ah, yes, castle and gold; take them, and welcome."
+
+"Not so fast: Moneta and her child are worth more than these. Will you
+give me the castle and gold, and ten years of your life?"
+
+"With all my heart."
+
+"Then," said the kelpie "go home, and to-morrow you shall see Moneta
+and her child."
+
+When the morrow came, the husband and wife wept for joy at meeting
+once more; and Ivan said,--
+
+"Can you forgive me, dearest Moneta?"
+
+Moneta had already forgiven him; and the three--father, mother, and
+child--loved one another, and were content to the end of their lives;
+and Ivan said,--
+
+"Once for all I have found that gold cannot make one happy; but, with
+the blessing of a clear conscience, warm hearts and loving words are
+the sweetest things in life."
+
+
+
+
+THE LOST SYLPHID.
+
+    "I tell the tale as 'twas told to me."
+
+
+I have heard that one night, on a distant shore, a band of
+water-nixies were dancing to gentle music, their golden sandals
+twinkling like stars.
+
+A lord and lady were walking on the same shore. The lord's eyes were
+bent on the ground; but his wife paused, and said,--
+
+"Listen, my lord, to that enchanting music!"
+
+"I hear no music," he replied, laughing. "You must wake up, dear wife.
+
+    "With half-shut eyes, ever you seem
+    Falling asleep in a half-dream."
+
+"But, my lord, those exquisite beings in gossamer robes! surely you
+see them!"
+
+"I see the play of the moonbeams, my love, and nothing more."
+
+But the wife stood transfixed. One beautiful fairy, taller and fairer
+than her companions, had wings, and floated through the dance,
+scarcely touching the earth.
+
+"Was ever such a vision of loveliness?" cried the enraptured lady:
+"she must be my own little daughter,--eat of my bread, and sleep upon
+my bosom."
+
+Then, kneeling, she sang,--
+
+    "Fair little nixies, that dwell near the water,
+    Give me the winged one to be my own daughter."
+
+The dance ceased. The nixies, bewildered, looked north and south, and
+knew not which way to flee; but the winged fairy, attracted by the
+human love in the lady's eyes, glided slowly forward. Then the nixies
+stormed in fierce wrath, their willowy figures swaying to and fro as
+if blown by the wind.
+
+"They shall not harm you, little one. Come with me, be my own
+daughter, and I will carry you home."
+
+"Home!" echoed the lovely child; "my home is in the Summer-land. Oh,
+will you indeed carry me there?"
+
+Then she folded her white wings, and nestled in the lady's bosom like
+a gentle dove, and was borne to a beautiful castle that overlooked the
+sea. The water-nixies soon forgot her, for they could not hold her
+memory in their little humming-bird hearts.
+
+She was not of their race. Her wings were soft and transparent, like
+those of a white butterfly; and she ever declared that she had once
+alighted from a cloud, and been caught in a nixie's net spread upon
+the grass.
+
+But, in time, her wings dwindled and disappeared; and then the lord,
+who was now her father, could not remember that she had ever been
+other than an earthly child.
+
+"You fancy you were once a sylphid," said he; "but there are no
+sylphids, my sweet one, and there is no Summer-land."
+
+The child became as dear to the lord and lady as their very heart's
+blood; and they forgot her foreign birth, and almost believed, as all
+the world did, that she was their own little daughter. But the child
+did not forget. She longed for the true home she had left; but whither
+should she go to seek it?
+
+"Dear papa," said she, one day, "I beg you will not say again there
+are no sylphids; for I remember so well how I spread my wings and
+flew. It was glorious to see the clouds float under my feet!"
+
+"Very well," said the lord; "if you like, I will say there are
+sylphids in the air, and trolls inside the earth; and, once on a time,
+I was myself a great white butterfly: do you remember chasing me over
+a bed of roses?"
+
+"O papa, now you laugh! I love the twinkle in your eye; and I am so
+glad it is you, and no one else, who is my papa; but just the same,
+and forevermore, I shall keep saying, _I was a sylphid_!"
+
+Sometimes, when she set her white teeth into some delicious fruit, she
+said with dreamy eyes,--
+
+"These grapes of Samarcand came across the seas; but they are not so
+sweet as the fruit in my own garden, mamma."
+
+"And where is your garden, my child?"
+
+"Oh, in the Summer-land. I always forget that you have never seen it.
+When I go there again, mamma, I will certainly take you too; for I
+love you with all my heart. I can never go without you."
+
+When she heard the evening-bells from the minster, she said, "Oh, they
+are like the joy-bells at home, only not so sweet. Nothing, here, is
+so sweet. Even my dear mamma is not so lovely as the lady who comes
+when I am asleep."
+
+Little One--they called her Little One for the want of a name--loved
+to prattle about the wonders of that mysterious fairy-land, which no
+one but herself had ever seen. Her mother would not check her, but let
+her tell her pretty visions of remembered rainbows, and palaces, and
+precious gems. She said,--
+
+"The child has such a vivid fancy! It is not all of us who can see
+pictures when our eyes are shut."
+
+But the lord was not so well pleased; and once, when his daughter
+looked at a frozen stream and murmured, "_We_ have the _happiest_
+rivers at home; they sing all day long, all the year, without
+freezing! Can I find that Summer-land again! Oh, I would creep all
+over the world to seek it," he replied,--
+
+"Little One, it is some cloud-city you are thinking of, some
+dream-land, or isle of Long Ago, which you will never see again. I beg
+you to forget these wild fancies."
+
+But still the child dreamed on. Once she heard the glad song of the
+Hyperboreans:--
+
+    "I come from a land in the sun-bright deep,
+      Where golden gardens glow;
+    Where the winds of the North, becalmed in sleep,
+      Their conch-shells never blow."
+
+She clapped her hands, murmuring to herself,--
+
+"_There_ is my home! I think I remember now it _was_ 'a land in the
+sun-bright deep!'"
+
+So, when she journeyed with her parents to distant countries, she
+always hoped that some ship would bear her away to the Happy Isles;
+and when they once touched a bright shore, and some one cried, "The
+isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!" she thought she was home at
+last, and hardly dared look at the remembered shore. But, alas, she
+had not yet reached the Summer-land: this was not her home.
+
+Then she heard her father say that the jewels she wore had been
+brought up from the deep places under the earth.
+
+"I wonder I had not thought of that," she said to herself. "Since
+there are such beautiful gems in my lost home, it must lie under the
+earth. No doubt if I could only find the right cave, and walk in it
+far enough, I should come to the Summer-land."
+
+So she set out, one day, in wild haste, but only lost herself in a
+deep cavern; and, when she found daylight again, she was all alone
+upon the face of the earth. Her father and mother were nowhere to be
+seen. She shouted their names, and ran to and fro seeking them till
+her strength was all spent. It was growing dark; and Little One could
+only creep under a shelter, and weep herself asleep.
+
+Next morning it was no better, but far worse. Her wretched parents had
+gone home, believing her drowned in the sea. Poor Little One was now
+all alone in the world, and her heart ached with the cold. Kind
+friends gave her food and shelter, and her clothing was warm as warm
+could be; still her heart ached with the cold. People praised her
+beauty so much that she dared not look up to let them see how lovely
+she was; but she had lost both her father and mother, and her heart
+ached and ached. She thought winter was coming on; and the world was
+growing so chilly, that now she must certainly set out for the
+Summer-land. Then she said,--
+
+"If I am a sylphid, perhaps my home is over the hills, and far away.
+Yes: I think it must be in the country where the music goes."
+
+For she thought, when she heard music, that it seemed to hover and
+float over the earth, and lose itself in the sky; so she began to set
+her face toward the country where the music goes. But, though she
+gazed till her eyes ached, she never saw her long-lost home, nor so
+much as a glimpse of one of its spires.
+
+One night, after gazing and weeping till she could scarcely see, and
+had no tears left, the bright being who visited her dreams came and
+whispered,--
+
+    "If there be a land so fair
+      O'er the mountain shining,
+    You will never enter there
+      By looking up and pining."
+
+"Dear me! then what shall I do?" said Little One, clasping her hands.
+"I am tired of the dropping rain, and the bleak winds; I have lost my
+father and mother; I long to go home to the Summer-land."
+
+"There are hills to climb, and streams to cross," said the fairy.
+
+"But I have stout shoes," laughed Little One.
+
+"There are thorns and briers all along the road."
+
+"But I can bear to be pricked."
+
+"Then I will guide you," said the fairy.
+
+"How can that be?" cried the child. "You come to me in dreams; but by
+daylight I cannot see so much as the tips of your wings."
+
+"Listen, and you will hear my voice," replied the fairy. "Set out
+toward the East, at dawn, to-morrow, and I will be with you."
+
+When Little One awoke, the sun was rising, and she said,--
+
+"Oh that golden gate! The sun has left it open: do you see it,
+beautiful lady?"
+
+"I see it," whispered the fairy: "I am close beside you."
+
+"Then," said Little One, fastening her dress, and putting on all the
+jewels she could possibly carry, "I think I will set out at once; for,
+if I make all speed, I may reach the Summer-land before that golden
+gate is closed."
+
+She pressed on, as the fairy directed, up a steep hill, her eyes
+fixed on the glowing eastern sky. But, as the sun strode up higher,
+the morning clouds melted away.
+
+"Where is my golden gate?" cried the child.
+
+"Weeping so soon?" whispered the fairy.
+
+"Do not scold me, dear Whisper," moaned the child; "you know I have
+lost my kind father and mother; and the thorns prick me; and then this
+is such a lonely road; there is nobody to be seen."
+
+The truth was, there were children gathering strawberries on the hill,
+and old women digging herbs; but Little One did not see them, for she
+was all the while watching the sky. But she was soon obliged to pause,
+and take breath.
+
+"Look about you," said the Whisper, "you may see some one as unhappy
+as yourself."
+
+The child looked, and saw a little girl driving a goat; while large
+tears trickled down her cheeks, and moistened her tattered dress. For
+a moment, Little One's heart ceased aching with its own troubles.
+
+"What is your name, little girl?" said she: "and why do you weep?"
+
+"My name is Poor Dorel," replied the child; "my father and mother are
+long since dead; and I have nothing to eat but goat's milk and
+strawberries:" and, as she spoke, the large tears started afresh.
+
+"Poor Dorel! you are the first one I ever saw who had as much trouble
+as I. I, too, have lost a father and mother."
+
+"Were they a king and queen?" asked Dorel, wiping her eyes, and gazing
+at Little One's beautiful dress and glittering ornaments.
+
+"They loved me dearly," replied Little One sadly; "yet I never heard
+that they were king and queen. Come with me, darling Dorel! I never
+before saw any one who was hungry. Come with me! I live in a country
+where there is food enough for everybody."
+
+"Where is that?" said Dorel, eagerly.
+
+"I do not quite know, little girl; but it is not in the bosom of the
+earth, and it is not in the sun-bright deep: so I suppose it is over
+the hills, and far away."
+
+"Now I know who you are," said Dorel. "You are the _lost sylphid_; and
+people say you have travelled all over the world. But, if you do not
+know the way home, pray how can you tell which road to take?"
+
+"Oh! I have a guide,--a beautiful fairy, called Whisper: she shows me
+every step of the way. I wish you would go too, little Dorel!"
+
+"I think I will not, little Sylphid; for, if you have only a Whisper
+for a guide, I do not believe you will ever get there; but, oh, you
+are very, very beautiful!"
+
+"If you will not go," said Little One, "let me, at least, give you a
+few of my jewels: you can sell them for bread."
+
+So saying, she took from her girdle some turquoise ornaments, and
+placed them in Dorel's hand with a kiss which had her whole heart in
+it.
+
+"Now I love you," said Dorel; "but more for the kiss than any thing
+else; and I am going before you to cut down the thorns that shoot out
+by the wayside. I am a little mountain-girl, and know how to use the
+pruning-knife."
+
+Little One danced for joy. She found she could now walk with wonderful
+ease; for not only were there no more sharp thorns to prick her, but
+her heart was also full of a new love, which made the whole world look
+beautiful.
+
+"You see the way is growing easier," said the Whisper.
+
+    "Pour out thy love like the rush of a river,
+    Wasting its waters forever and ever."
+
+"So I will," said Little One. "Is there any one else to love?"
+
+By and by she met an old woman, bent nearly double, and picking up dry
+sticks with trembling hands.
+
+"Poor woman!" said Little One: "I am going to love you."
+
+"Dear me!" said the old crone, dropping her sticks, and looking up
+with surprise in every wrinkle: "you don't mean _me_? Why, my heart is
+all dried up."
+
+"Then you need to be loved all the more," cried Little One heartily.
+
+The poor woman laughed; but, at the same time, brushed a tear from
+her eye with the corner of her apron.
+
+"I thought," said Little One, "I was the only unhappy one in the
+world: it seemed a pity my heart should ache so much; but, oh, I would
+rather have it ache than be dried up!"
+
+"I suppose you never were beaten," said the old woman; "you were never
+pelted with whizzing stones?"
+
+"Indeed I never, never was!" replied Little One, greatly shocked by
+the question.
+
+"By your costly dress, I know you never were so poor as to be always
+longing for food. Let me tell you, my good child, when one is beaten
+and scolded, and feels cold all winter, and hungry all summer, it is
+no wonder one's heart dries up!"
+
+Little One threw her arms about the old woman's neck. "Let me help
+you pick sticks!" said she; "you are too old for hard work; your hands
+tremble too much."
+
+Swiftly gathering up a load of fagots, she put them together in a
+bundle.
+
+"Now, how many jewels shall I give her?" thought the child. "She must
+never want for food again."
+
+"How many?" echoed the Whisper.
+
+    "Give as the morning that flows out of heaven:
+    Give as the free air and sunshine are given."
+
+"Then she shall have half," said Little One in great glee. "Here, poor
+woman, take these sapphires and rubies and diamonds, and never be
+hungry again!"
+
+"Heavenly child!" said the stranger, laying her wasted hand on the
+sylphid's bright head, and blessing her, "it is little except thanks
+that an old creature like me can give; yet may be you will not scorn
+this pair of little shoes: they are strong, and, when you have to step
+on the sharp mountain-rocks, they will serve you well."
+
+Little One's delicate slippers were already much worn, and she gladly
+exchanged them for the goat-skin shoes; but, strange to relate, no
+sooner had she done so than she found herself flitting over rocks and
+rough places with perfect ease, and at such speed, that, when she
+looked back, in a moment, she had already left the old woman far
+behind, and out of sight. They were magical shoes; but, no matter how
+fast they skimmed over the ground, Dorel, out of pure love, continued
+to go before, talking and laughing and smoothing the way.
+
+One by one Little One sold her jewels to buy bread, which she shared
+with all the needy she chanced to meet. After many days there
+remained but one gem; and she wept because she had no more to give.
+But, through her tears, she now, for the first time, fancied she could
+see the spires and turrets of her beautiful home, though, as yet, very
+far off.
+
+"How fast I have come!" said she, laughing with delight. "But for
+these magical shoes, and Dorel's pruning-knife, I should have been
+even now struggling at the foot of the hill."
+
+Then she looked down at her torn dress.
+
+"What a sad plight I am in! no one will know me when I get home!"
+
+"Never fear!" said the fairy: "you are sure to be welcome."
+
+Little One now held up her last jewel in the sunlight, while a
+starving boy looked at it with eager eyes.
+
+"Take it!" said she, weeping with the tenderest pity. "I only wish
+it were a diamond instead of a ruby,--a diamond as large as my heart!"
+
+    [Illustration: THE LOST SYLPHID. Page 95.]
+
+The boy blessed her with a tremulous voice. Little One pressed on,
+singing softly to herself, till she came to a frightful chasm, full of
+water.
+
+"How shall I ever cross it!" she cried in alarm.
+
+"May I help you, fair Sylphid?" said the grateful boy to whom she had
+given her last jewel. "I can make a bridge in the twinkling of an
+eye."
+
+So saying, he threw across the roaring torrent a film which looked as
+frail as any spider's web.
+
+"It will bear you," said the Whisper: "do not be afraid!"
+
+So Little One ventured upon the gossamer bridge, which was to the eye
+as delicate as mist; but to the feet as strong as adamant. She hushed
+her fears, and walked over it with a stout heart.
+
+Now, she was on the borders of the Summer-land. Here were the turrets
+and spires, the soft white clouds, the green fields, and sunny
+streams. Instantly her long-lost wings appeared again; and she spread
+them like a happy bird, and flew home. Oh, it was worth years of
+longing and pain! She was held in tender embraces, and kissed lovingly
+by well-remembered friends. To her great surprise and delight, her
+father and mother were both there--they had arrived at the Summer-land
+while seeking their Little One.
+
+"Now I know," said her father, "that my daughter was not dreaming when
+she longed for her remembered home."
+
+Little One looked at her soiled dress; but the stains had disappeared;
+and, most wonderful! all the jewels she had worn on her neck and
+arms, and in her girdle, were there yet, burning with increased
+brilliancy. Little One gazed again, and counted to see if any were
+missing. Yes: two she had sold for bread were not there. It was the
+jewels she had _given away_ which had come back in some mysterious
+manner and were more resplendent than before.
+
+"Ah!" said she, with a beaming smile, "now I know what it means when
+they say, 'All you give, you will carry with you.' It was delightful
+to scatter my gems by the wayside; but I did not think they would all
+be given back to me when I reached home!"
+
+Then, intwining arms with a bright sylphid, she flew with her over the
+gardens in a trance of delight.
+
+"Here," said Little One, "is my own dear garden. I remember the border
+and the paths right well; but it never bore such golden fruit, it
+never glowed with such beautiful flowers."
+
+"Your fairy, the one you call Whisper, has taken care of it for your
+sake," said the sister sylphid. "Do you know that those flowers, and
+those trees with fruit like 'bonny beaten gold,' have been watered by
+your tears, Little One? It is in this way they have attained their
+matchless beauty and grace."
+
+"_My tears_, little sister?"
+
+"Yes, your tears. Every one you shed upon earth, your fairy most
+carefully preserved; and see what wonders have been wrought!"
+
+"If I had known that," said Little One clapping her hands, "I would
+have been _glad_ of all my troubles! I would have smiled through my
+tears!"
+
+Now I know no more than I have told of this story of the Lost
+Sylphid. I tell the tale as 'twas told to me; and I wish, with all my
+heart, it were true.
+
+
+
+
+THE CASTLE OF GEMS.
+
+
+Once upon a time, though I cannot tell when, and in what country I do
+not now remember, there lived a maiden as fair as a lily, as gentle as
+a dewdrop, and as modest as a violet. A pure, sweet name she had,--it
+was Blanche.
+
+She stood one evening, with her friend Victor, by the shore of a lake.
+Never had the youth or maiden seen the moonlight so enchanting; but
+they did not know
+
+    "It was midsummer day,
+    When all the fairy people
+    From elf-land come away."
+
+Presently, while they gazed at the lake, which shone like liquid
+emerald and sapphire and topaz, a boat, laden with strangely
+beautiful beings, glided towards them across the waters. The fair
+voyagers were clad in robes of misty blue with white mantles about
+their waists, and on their heads wreaths of valley-lilies.
+
+They were all as fair as need be; but fairest of all was the
+helms-woman, the queen of the fairies. Her face was soft and clear
+like moonlight; and she wore a crown of nine large diamonds, which
+refracted the evening rays, and formed nine lunar rainbows.
+
+The fairies were singing a roundelay; and, as the melody floated over
+the waters, Victor and Blanche listened with throbbing hearts. Fairy
+music has almost passed away from the earth; but those who hear it are
+strangely moved, and have dreams of beautiful things which have been,
+and may be again.
+
+"It makes me think of the days of long ago when there was no sin,"
+whispered Blanche.
+
+"It makes me long to be a hero," answered Victor with a sparkling eye.
+
+All the while the pearly boat was drifting toward the youth and
+maiden; and, when it had touched the shore, the queen stepped out upon
+the land as lightly as if she had been made entirely of dewdrops.
+
+"I am Fontana," said she; "and is this Blanche?"
+
+She laid her soft hand upon the maiden's shoulder; and Blanche thought
+she would like to die then and there, so full was she of joy.
+
+"I have heard of thy good heart, my maiden: now what would please thee
+most?" said the queen.
+
+Blanche bowed her head, and dared not speak.
+
+Queen Fontana smiled: when she smiled it was as if a soft cloud had
+slid away from the moon, revealing a beautiful light.
+
+"Say pearls and diamonds," said Victor in her ear.
+
+"I don't know," whispered Blanche: "they are not the best things."
+
+"No," said the queen kindly: "pearls and diamonds are _not_ the best
+things."
+
+Then Blanche knew that her whisper had been overheard, and she hid her
+face in her hands for shame. But the queen only smiled down on her,
+and, without speaking, dropped into the ground a little seed. Right at
+the feet of Blanche, it fell; and, in a moment, two green leaves shot
+upward, and between them a spotless lily, which hung its head with
+modest grace.
+
+Victor gazed at the perfect flower in wonder, and, before he knew it,
+said aloud, "Ah, how like Blanche!"
+
+The queen herself broke it from the stem, and gave it to the maiden,
+saying,--
+
+"Take it! it is my choicest gift. Till it fades (which will never be),
+love will be thine; and, in time to come, it will have power to open
+the strongest locks, and swing back the heaviest doors.
+
+    "'Gates of brass cannot withstand
+    One touch of this magic wand.'"
+
+Blanche looked up to thank the queen; but no words came,--only tears.
+
+"I see a wish in thine eyes," said Fontana.
+
+"It is for Victor," faltered Blanche, at last: "he wishes to be rich
+and great."
+
+The queen looked grave.
+
+"Shall I make him one of the great men of the earth, little Blanche?
+Then he may one day go to the ends of the world, and forget thee."
+
+Blanche only smiled, and Victor's cheek flushed.
+
+"I shall be a great man," said he,--"perhaps a prince; but, where I
+go, Blanche shall go: she will be my wife."
+
+"That is well," said the queen: "never forget Blanche, for her love
+will be your dearest blessing."
+
+Then, removing from her girdle a pair of spectacles, she placed them
+in the youth's hand. He drew back in surprise. "Does she take me for
+an old man?" thought he. He had expected a casket of gems at least;
+perhaps a crown.
+
+"Wait," said Fontana: "they are the eyes of Wisdom. When you have
+learned their use, you will not despise my gift. Keep a pure heart,
+and always remember Blanche. And now farewell!"
+
+So saying, she moved on to the boat, floating over the ground as
+softly as a creeping mist.
+
+When Blanche awoke next morning, her first thought was, "Happy are the
+maidens who have sweet dreams!" for she thought she had only been
+wandering in a midsummer's night's dream; so, when she saw her lily in
+the broken pitcher where she had placed it, great was her delight. But
+a change had come over it during the night. It was no longer a common
+lily,--its petals were large pearls, and the green leaves were now
+green emeralds. This strange thing had happened to the flower, that it
+might never fade.
+
+After this, people looked at Blanche, and said, "How is it? she grows
+fairer every day!" and every one loved her; for the human heart has no
+choice but to love what is good and gentle.
+
+As for Victor, he at first put on his spectacles with a scornful
+smile: but, when he had worn them a moment, he found them very
+wonderful things. When he looked through them, he could see people's
+thoughts written out on their faces; he could easily decipher the fine
+writing which you see traced on green leaves; and found there were
+long stories written on pebbles in little black and gray dots.
+
+When he wore the spectacles, he looked so wise, that Blanche hardly
+dared speak to him. She saw that one day he was to become a great man.
+
+At last Victor said he must leave his home, and sail across the seas.
+Tears filled the eyes of Blanche; but the youth whispered,--
+
+"I am going away to find a home for you and me: so adieu, dearest
+Blanche!"
+
+Now Victor thought the ship in which he sailed moved very slowly; for
+he longed to reach the land which he could see through his magic
+spectacles: it was a beautiful kingdom, rich with mines of gold and
+silver.
+
+When the ship touched shore, the streets were lined with people who
+walked to and fro with sad faces. The king's daughter, a beautiful
+young maiden, was very ill; and it was feared she must die.
+
+Victor asked one of the people if there was no hope.
+
+It so happened that this man was the greatest physician in the kingdom
+and he answered,--
+
+"Alas, there is no hope!"
+
+Then Victor went to a distant forest where he knew a healing spring
+was to be found. Very few remembered it was there; and those who had
+seen it did not know of its power to heal disease.
+
+Victor filled a crystal goblet with the precious water, and carried
+it to the palace. The old king shook his head sadly, but consented to
+let the attendants moisten the parched lips of the princess with the
+water, as it could do no harm. Far from doing harm, it wrought a great
+good; and, in time, the royal maiden was restored to health.
+
+Then, for gratitude, the king would have given his daughter to Victor
+for a wife; but Victor remembered Blanche, and knew that no other
+maiden must be bride of his.
+
+Not long after this, the king was lost overboard at sea during a
+storm. Now the people must have a new ruler. They determined to choose
+a wise and brave man; and, young as he was, no man could be found
+braver and wiser than Victor: so the people elected him for their
+king. Thus Fontana's gift of the eyes of Wisdom had made him truly
+"one of the great men of earth."
+
+In her humble home, Blanche dreamed every night of Victor, and hoped
+he would grow good, if he did not become great; and Victor remembered
+Blanche, and knew that her love was his dearest blessing.
+
+"This old palace," thought he, "will never do for my beautiful bride."
+
+So he called together his people, and told them he must have a castle
+of gems. Some of the walls were to be of rubies, some of emeralds,
+some of pearls. There was to be any amount of beaten gold for doors
+and pillars; and the ceilings were to be of milk-white opals, with a
+rosy light which comes and goes.
+
+All was done as he desired; and, when the castle of gems was finished,
+it would need a pen of jasponyx dipped in rainbows to describe it.
+
+Victor thought he would not have a guard of soldiers for his castle,
+but would lock the four golden gates with a magic key, so that no one
+could enter unless the gates should swing back of their own accord.
+
+When the castle of gems was just completed, and not a soul was in it,
+Victor locked the gates with a magic key, and then dropped the key
+into the ocean.
+
+"Now," thought he, "I have done a wise thing. None but the good and
+true can enter my castle of gems. The gates will not swing open for
+men with base thoughts or proud hearts!"
+
+Then he hid himself under the shadow of a tree, and watched the people
+trying to enter. But they were proud men, and so the gates would not
+open.
+
+King Victor laughed, and said to himself,--
+
+"I have done a wise thing with my magic key. How safe I shall be in
+my castle of gems!"
+
+So he stepped out of his hiding-place, and said to the people,--
+
+"None but the good and true can get in."
+
+Then he tried to go in himself; but the gates would not move.
+
+The king bowed his head in shame, and walked back to his old palace.
+
+"Alas!" said he to himself, "wise and great as I am, I thought _I_
+could go in. I see it must be because I am filled with pride. Let me
+hide my face; for what would Blanche say if she knew, that, because my
+heart is proud, I am shut out of my own castle? I am not worthy that
+she should love me; but I hope I shall learn of her to be humble and
+good."
+
+The next day he sailed for the home of his childhood. When Blanche saw
+him, she blushed, and cast down her eyes; but Victor knew they were
+full of tears of joy. He held her hand, and whispered,--
+
+"Will you go with me and be my bride, beautiful Blanche?"
+
+"I will go with you," she answered softly; and Victor's heart
+rejoiced.
+
+All the while Blanche never dreamed that he was a great prince, and
+that the men who came with him were his courtiers.
+
+When they reached Victor's kingdom, and the people shouted "Long live
+the queen!" Blanche veiled her face, and trembled; for Victor
+whispered in her ear that the shouts were for her. And, as the people
+saw her beautiful face through her gossamer veil, they cried all the
+more loudly,--
+
+"Long live Queen Blanche! Thrice welcome, fair lady!"
+
+The sun was sinking in the west, and his rays fell with dazzling
+splendor upon the castle of gems. When Blanche saw the silent, closed
+castle and its golden gates, she remembered the words of Queen
+Fontana, who had said that her lily should have power to "open the
+strongest locks, and swing back the heaviest doors."
+
+Like one walking in a dream, she led Victor toward the resplendent
+castle. She touched, with her lily, the lock which fastened one of the
+gates.
+
+    "Gates of gold could not withstand
+    One touch of that magic wand."
+
+In an instant, the hinges trembled; and the massive door swung open so
+far, that forty people could walk in side by side. Then it slowly
+closed, and locked itself without noise.
+
+One of the people who passed in was the king, whose heart was no
+longer proud. The others, who had entered unwittingly, could not speak
+for wonder. Some of them were poor, and some were lame or blind; but
+all were good and true.
+
+At the rising of the moon a wonderful thing came to pass. The people
+entered the castle of gems, and became beautiful. This was through the
+power of the magic lily.
+
+Now there were no more crooked backs and lame feet and sightless eyes;
+and the king looked at these people, who were beautiful as well as
+good, and declared he would have them live in the castle; and the
+gentlemen should be knights; and the ladies, maids of honor.
+
+To this day Victor and Blanche rule the kingdom; and such is the charm
+of the lily,--so like the pure heart of the queen,--that the people
+are becoming gentle and good.
+
+Until Queen Fontana shall call for the magic spectacles and the lily
+of pearl, it is believed that Victor and Blanche will live in the
+castle of gems, though the time should be a hundred years.
+
+
+
+
+THE ELF OF LIGHT.
+
+A NORSE TALE.
+
+
+In the strange island of Iceland, thrown up, by fire, from the depths
+of the sea, there once lived a lad who worshipped the god Odin, and
+was taught from two absurd books called the Eddas. He wished to fight
+and die on a battle-field, so that his soul might cross a
+rainbow-bridge, and dwell in the beautiful halls of Valhalla.
+There--so the Eddas say--are the chosen heroes, who are forever
+fighting all day, and feasting all night.
+
+Thus, instead of a Bible, young Thule studied wild fairy-tales; yet,
+for all his heathenish training, he had some noble traits, which a
+Christian lad might imitate.
+
+He lived with his widowed mother at the edge of a forest. The snow
+piled itself in drifts, and the wind howled through the trees, and
+crept in at the windows; for the cottage was old, and a blind
+hurricane might almost have mistaken it for a heap of brushwood. But
+Thule was quite as happy as if the hut had been a palace. He loved the
+winter-beauty of his mother's face, and the silvery hair half hidden
+under her black cap. All the fire they burned was made of the dry
+sticks he gathered in the forest, and more than half the money they
+used was earned by his small hands.
+
+In one of the ice-months of the year, when the weather was sharper
+than a serpent's tooth, Thule came home from a hard day's work; and,
+the chillier he grew, the more he whistled to keep up a brave heart.
+Looking at the horizon before him, he saw the cold glare which we call
+Northern Lights, but which he knew to be the flickering of helmets and
+shields and spears.
+
+"The warlike maidens are out to-night," thought the boy: "they are
+going to the battle-fields to decide who is worthy to be slain. How I
+love to see the sky lighted up with the flash of their armor! Odin,
+grant I may one day be a hero, and walk over the bridge of a rainbow!"
+
+Then Thule went to his whistling again; but, just as he struck into
+the forest where the deep shadows lay, he heard a faint moan, which
+sounded like a human voice, or might have been a sudden gust of wind
+in a hollow tree.
+
+"Perchance it is some poor creature even colder than I," thought the
+boy: "I hope not a _troll_!"
+
+Hurrying to the spot whence the sound came, he found an ugly,
+long-nosed dwarf lying on the ground, nearly perishing with cold. It
+was growing late, and the boy himself was benumbed; but he went
+briskly to work, chafing the hands and face of the stranger, even
+taking off his own blue jacket to wrap it about the dwarf's neck.
+
+"Poor old soul, you shall not die of cold!" said he; then, helping him
+to rise, he added cheerily, "We will go to my mother's cottage, and
+have a warm supper of oat-cakes and herrings; and our fire of dry
+boughs will do you good."
+
+The noble boy knew there was barely supper enough for two, but did not
+mind going hungry to bed for charity's sake. In the ear of his heart,
+he heard the words of his mother:--
+
+"Never fear starving, my son, but freely share your last loaf with the
+needy."
+
+They walked through the forest, the old man leaning heavily on the
+youth's shoulder.
+
+"Why should you befriend a poor wretch who cannot repay you?" whined
+the dwarf in a hollow voice which startled Thule, it was so like the
+echo sent back by a mountain or a rock.
+
+"I do not ask or wish to be repaid," was the reply. "Don't you know
+what the proverb says? 'Do good, and throw it into the sea; if the
+fishes don't know it, _Odin_ will!'"
+
+"Yes: Odin shall know it, never fear," answered the dwarf; "but, as I
+happen to be informed that your tea-table is not quite large enough
+for three, I think I will decline your invitation to supper. Really,
+my lad," he continued, "it would delight me to do you a little favor;
+for, though I am only a poor dwarf, I know how to be grateful. By the
+way, have you seen such a thing hereabouts as a green alder-tree?"
+
+"A green alder-tree in winter-time!" cried Thule.
+
+"A curious thing, indeed," said the dwarf; "but I chanced to see one
+the other night in my rambles. Ah! look, here it is right before your
+eyes."
+
+All the other forest-trees were dry and hard, their hearts frozen
+within them; but this tree was alive, hidden behind a clump of firs.
+When Thule began to dig about its roots, it seemed to come out of the
+ground of its own free will, and to lie over his shoulders as if it
+would caress him.
+
+"Take home the little tree, and plant it before your door, my lad."
+
+The youth turned to thank the stranger; but he had vanished. Then
+Thule ran home with all speed to tell his mother of the little old man
+who had faded from his sight like a wreath of smoke.
+
+"Now I wonder what it is you have seen," said the good woman, raising
+her hands in surprise. "Was he brown, my son, with a long nose?"
+
+"As brown as a nut, mother, with no end of nose."
+
+"Just as I supposed, my child! That dwarf is a wonderful
+creature,--one of the night-elves, a race gifted with great
+understanding. Know, my son, that he carves runes upon stones; and he
+no doubt assisted in making Thor's hammer, that terrible instrument
+which can crush the skull of a giant."
+
+"One thing I observed," said the boy: "he blinked at that flashing in
+the sky, which people call Northern Lights; he had to shade his eyes
+with his funny little hand."
+
+"Did he, indeed? Poor Elf! Light is painful to his race; and I have
+even heard that a stroke of sunshine is able to turn them into
+stones. I am almost afraid of this little tree," added the good mother
+musingly. "You know what we read in the holy Eddas: Both the alder and
+the ash trees should be held sacred; for Odin formed man from the ash,
+and woman from the alder. Nevertheless, the night-elf could not have
+meant to do you a mischief. Let us plant the tree as he directed."
+
+"What, in the frozen ground, under the snow?"
+
+But it now, for the first time, appeared that there was a spot of
+earth near the south window, which must have been waiting for the
+tree, since it was as soft and warm as if the sun had been shining on
+it all the year. Here they planted the alder; and Thule brought water,
+and moistened the roots.
+
+Next morning the tree seemed to have grown a foot higher; and by
+daylight its leaves showed a silver lining.
+
+"May Odin favor my pretty alder!" said Thule; "nor let the frost pinch
+it, nor the winds blacken its green buds!"
+
+Thule went into the woods again; and, as he was whistling at his work,
+he happened to look down, and there, on the ground, at his feet, lay a
+purse, well lined with gold. He counted the pieces: fifty, all bright
+and new.
+
+"I will go to the town," thought the boy, shaking his head and sighing
+(for the gold was very tempting), "I will go to the town, and ask who
+has lost a purse with fifty pieces of precious gold. Ah, me! I wish I
+could keep it! then we should swim in herrings and oil; and who knows
+but, for once in my life, I might even get a taste of venison?"
+
+But next moment he loosened his greedy clutch at the purse. "No matter
+how bravely it shines! it is not _my_ gold; and it is too heavy for
+me to carry. Stolen money is worse than a mill-stone about one's neck,
+so my mother says."
+
+"Keep the purse, little boy," said a sweet voice close by his elbow.
+He turned, and saw a beautiful child, as radiant as a sunbeam, and
+clad in garments of delicate and transparent texture.
+
+"I will be your friend, little boy. That purse was dropped by a lady
+who wears a fur cloak and long veil. If she asks for her treasure, I
+can say it fell into a hole in the ground. Everybody believes me:
+never fear!"
+
+"Poor misguided angel!" said the boy, amazed by her wondrous beauty no
+less than by her apparent want of truth. "You are, indeed, a lovely
+little tempter; but I have a dear mother at home, and I love her
+better than a million pieces of gold. I must go to the town, and seek
+out this lady you mention, who wears a fur cloak and long veil."
+
+"Nay, if you will be so stupid," said the shining child, "why, I will
+even go with you, and show you the way."
+
+So, gliding gracefully before the bewildered youth, she led him out of
+the forest, into the most crowded part of the city, up to the door of
+a splendid mansion; but, when Thule turned his head only an instant,
+she was gone, and no trace of her was to be seen: she seemed to have
+melted into sunshine.
+
+The lady of the house received the purse with thanks, and would gladly
+have given Thule a piece of the gold; but, much as the boy longed for
+it, he put it aside, saying, "No, madam: my mother assures me I must
+be honest without the hope of reward. She would not like me to take
+wages for not being a thief!"
+
+The next morning the alder-tree had grown another foot; and Thule and
+his mother watched the growing leaves, and touched them with reverent
+fingers. They were certainly of a tender green, lined with shining
+silver.
+
+"May Odin favor my pretty alder!" said Thule; "nor let the frost pinch
+it, nor the winds blacken its green buds!"
+
+Then Thule kissed his mother, and trudged off to the forest as usual.
+But he seemed doomed to adventures; for this time he was met by three
+armed men, who were roaming the country as if seeking something.
+
+"Prithee, little urchin," said one of the men, "can you tell us what
+has become of a young alder-tree, whose green leaves are lined with
+silver?"
+
+"I dug up an alder-bush, kind sirs," replied the boy, trembling, and
+remembering that his mother had said she was almost afraid of that
+little tree.
+
+"There are many alder-bushes," said another of the men gruffly; "but
+only one is green at this time of year, and has silver-lined leaves.
+It was placed here by command of the giant Loki, and no one was to
+touch it under pain of death; for, when his mountain-garden should be
+laid out in the spring, the tree was to be uprooted, and planted
+therein."
+
+Thule grew almost as stiff and white as if a frost-giant had suddenly
+breathed on him. He knew that Loki was a pitiless god, feared by all,
+and beloved by none,--a god who had an especial grudge against the
+whole human race.
+
+"I will hold my peace," thought Thule. "I will never confess that the
+tree I carried away has silver-lined leaves. I will hasten home, pluck
+up the bush, and burn it: then who will be the wiser?"
+
+But Thule, in spite of his trembling, could not forget his good
+mother's counsel:--
+
+"Your words, my boy, let them be truth, and nothing but truth, though
+a sword should be swinging over your head."
+
+Then, as soon as his voice returned to him, he confessed that the tree
+he had removed was really just such an one as the men described, and
+begged for mercy, because, as he said, he had committed the sin
+ignorantly, not knowing the mandate of the terrible giant.
+
+But the men bade Thule lead them to his mother's house, and point out
+his stolen treasure; declaring that they could show no mercy; for,
+when Loki had made a decree, no man should alter it by one jot or one
+tittle.
+
+"Oh!" thought the unfortunate boy, wringing his hands, and trembling
+till the woollen tassel on his cap danced a gallopade, "oh, if the
+cruel night-elf, who led me into this mischief, would only come
+forward now, and help me out of it! But, alas, it is of no avail to
+invoke him; for it is now broad daylight, and the sun would strike him
+into a stone image in a twinkling."
+
+When Thule, followed by the messengers of Loki, had reached the door
+of his cottage, he found his gray-haired mother sprinkling the roots
+of the beautiful alder, and fondling its leaves with innocent
+pleasure. At sight of the armed men, she started back in affright.
+
+"It is indeed the giant's tree," said the men to Thule. "Pluck it up,
+and follow us with it to Loki's castle on the mountain."
+
+"To Loki's castle!" shrieked the wretched mother. "Then he must pass
+a frightful wilderness, be assailed by the frost-giants; and, if there
+be any breath left in him, Loki will dash it out at a glance! Have
+mercy on a poor old mother, O good soldiers!"
+
+The unhappy boy touched the tree, and it came out of the ground of its
+own free will; and, in a trice, stood on its feet, shook out its
+branches into arms, and in another moment was no longer a tree, but a
+child, with a beauty as dazzling as sunshine.
+
+"Unfortunate men!" said she, in a voice whose angriest tones were
+sweeter than the music of an AEolian harp, "unfortunate are you in
+being the servants of Loki! Go, tell your cruel master that the
+schemes he has plotted against me and mine have all failed: my
+enchantment is over forever. Yonder boy," said she, pointing to little
+Thule, "has saved me. I was, and still remain, an elf of light, as
+playful and harmless as sunshine. The merciless Loki, enraged at the
+love I bear the children of men, changed me to a little alder-tree,
+which is the emblem of girlhood. But he had no power to keep me in
+that form forever. He was obliged to make a condition, and he made the
+hardest one that his artful mind could invent: 'Since you love mortals
+so dearly,' said he, 'no one but a mortal shall free you from your
+imprisonment. You shall remain a tree till a good child shall touch
+you,--a child who is generous enough to SHARE HIS LAST LOAF WITH A
+STRANGER, honest enough to GIVE BACK A REWARD FOR HIS HONESTY, brave
+enough to SPEAK THE TRUTH WHEN A LIE WOULD HAVE SAVED HIS LIFE. Long
+shall you wait for such a deliverer!'
+
+"Now how amazed will Loki be when he learns that this little boy has
+been tempted in all these particulars, yet proves true. My poor
+soldiers, you may return whence you came, for the alder-tree will
+never rustle its silver leaves in the mountain-garden of Loki."
+
+Then the men disappeared, not sorry that the good boy had escaped his
+threatened doom.
+
+Thule, looking at the beautiful elf so lately a tree, could hardly
+trust his own eyes; and I fancy that many a boy, even at the present
+day, would have felt rather bewildered under the circumstances.
+
+"Shining child!" said he: "you look vastly like the wonderful little
+being who led me out of the forest yesterday."
+
+"That may well be," replied the elf of light; "for she is my sister.
+The brown dwarf who pointed out to you the alder-tree is also an
+excellent friend of mine, though, strange to say, I have never seen
+him. We love to aid each other in all possible ways; yet we can never
+meet, for there is a fatality in my eyes which would strike him dead.
+He had heard of Thule, the little woodcutter who was called so brave
+and generous and true. He tried you, you see; and so did my frolicsome
+sister, who was fairly ablaze with delight when she found you could
+not be tempted to steal!"
+
+Thule's mother had stood all the while on the threshold, overawed and
+dumb. Now she came forward, and said,--
+
+"I am prouder to-day than I should be if my son had slain ten men on
+the battle-field!"
+
+The beautiful elf of light, penetrated with gratitude and admiration,
+remained Thule's fast friend as long as he lived. She gave the lad
+and his mother an excellent home, and made them happy all the days of
+their lives.
+
+
+
+
+THE PRINCESS HILDA.
+
+
+Princess Hildegarde sat at an open window, looking out upon her garden
+of flowers. She was very beautiful, with a face as fair and sweet as a
+rose. Not far off sat, watching her, her young cousin Zora, with a
+frown on her brow.
+
+There was bitter hatred in Zora's heart because Hildegarde was rich
+and she was poor; because Hildegarde would, in time, be a queen, and
+she one of her subjects. Moreover, Hildegarde was so beautiful and
+good that the fame of her loveliness had spread far and wide; and it
+was for her beauty that Zora hated her more than for any thing else.
+
+In childhood Zora had been very fair; and the courtiers had petted
+her, and pronounced her even fairer than the princess; but her beauty
+had never meant any thing but bright eyes and cherry cheeks: so it
+could not last. If she had only cherished pure thoughts and kind
+wishes, she might still have been as lovely as Hilda; but who does not
+know that evil feelings write themselves on the face?
+
+Jealousy had pulled her mouth down at the corners; deceit had given it
+a foolish smirk; spite had plowed an ugly frown in her brow; while she
+had tried so many arts to make her rich brown skin as delicately white
+as Hilda's, that it was changed to the tint of chrome yellow.
+
+It was said in those days, that Zora was in the power of wicked
+fairies, who twisted her features into the shape that pleased them
+best.
+
+At any rate, how the amiable Princess Hilda was to blame for all
+these deformities it would be hard to say; and she little dreamed of
+the malice in her cousin's heart.
+
+But, while Hilda was looking out of the window, a noble knight passed
+that way; and so delighted was he with the rare sweetness of her face,
+that he forgot himself, and paused a moment to gaze at her. The
+princess blushed, and let fall the silken curtain; but Zora had seen
+the knight, and knew he was the royal Prince Reginald. She ground her
+teeth in rage; for she had determined that the prince should never see
+her beautiful cousin.
+
+"They shall not meet," said she to herself: "no, not if there are bad
+fairies enough to prevent it."
+
+But, when the princess looked up, Zora was smiling very sweetly. Who
+could have dreamed that she was thinking of nothing but how to ruin
+the peace of her gentle cousin?
+
+Zora could hardly wait for nightfall, so eager was she to do her
+wicked work. When it was dark, and all was quiet, she stole out of the
+castle, wearing a black mantle which hid her face.
+
+"Now," thought she, "no one can recognize me, and I will seek the
+fairy Gerula."
+
+You must know that Gerula was one of the most wicked and hideous
+sprites that ever existed. She dwelt in a cave far from the abodes of
+men. It was hidden by huge trees through which the wind never ceased
+howling. At evening owls hooted overhead, and many creeping things
+wound their length along the ground. The more toads and snakes she
+could see about her, the better was she pleased; for fairies, as well
+as mortals, are attracted by what is akin to themselves.
+
+She was descended from a race called kobolds or goblins; and she loved
+all the metals which lie under the earth as well as the living things
+which crawl up out of its bosom.
+
+So acute were her ears, that she heard Zora's steps from a great
+distance. She brushed back her elf-locks, and gave a low grunt like
+some wild beast. It pleased her that the Lady Zora should find need of
+her counsel; but, when Zora had reached the cave, the cunning fairy
+pretended to be sleeping, and started up in seeming surprise.
+
+"What brings a body here at this time of night?" said she.
+
+"I am Lady Zora. I have come, sweet fairy, to beg a favor. The
+Princess Hilda is hateful to me: work one of your charms on her, and
+let me see her face no more."
+
+The old fairy pricked up her ears and said to herself, "Ha! ha! I
+will have nice sport out o' this!" then said aloud, "Say, what harm
+has the princess done to my rosebud, my lily, my pride?"
+
+Zora's eyes flashed. "Prince Reginald has seen her; and to see her is
+to love her. My heart is set on wedding Prince Reginald. Take her out
+of his way!"
+
+Just then a broad gleam of moonlight fell on the treacherous maiden.
+It was strange how much she looked like the cruel fairy; and Gerula
+gazed on her with delight.
+
+"My beautiful viper!" said she, using the sweetest pet-name she could
+think of, "I will do your bidding. But first say what you will give me
+if I put Hildegarde out of your way."
+
+Then she chuckled, and rubbed her hands in great glee. Zora started
+back in alarm.
+
+"I did not know you sold your charms for gold; but I would give you
+half my fortune if need be, any thing, to be rid of Hilda."
+
+The fairy chuckled again. "Just the damsel for me," thought she.
+
+"I will give you a diamond necklace," said Zora: "it is worth a small
+kingdom, and was given me by my cousin Hilda. You can surely ask no
+more?"
+
+"Diamonds!" said the goblin, snapping her fingers. "What think you I
+care for them? Do I not tire of stooping to pick them up? for they are
+given me by my cousins, the gnomes, any day. No diamonds for me! Keep
+them and your gold. I ask but one thing, my dear."
+
+Here she spoke in low hissing tones, more terrible than her loudest
+croakings.
+
+"Promise me, if you do not marry Prince Reginald, you will let me
+change you into a charming green snake."
+
+"Alas!" cried Zora, turning pale, "who ever heard of such a cruel
+request?"
+
+"Cruel, am I?" said the goblin in delight. "Oh, I must seem cruel to
+one who is so gentle and lovely as Hilda!"
+
+"Alas," cried Zora, "I may fail to win Prince Reginald."
+
+"All the better," chuckled the fairy. "When you become a snake, you
+and I shall enjoy each other's society, I assure you."
+
+Zora shuddered.
+
+"But it's all one to me," added the goblin, beginning to yawn. "On the
+whole, I think you may as well go home."
+
+Zora wrung her hands, and groaned.
+
+"Yes," said the gnome: "go back to the castle. Ugh! I would sooner
+trust one of my winking owls to do a daring deed than you! Fie upon
+you! Creep back to your bed, and let Hilda marry the prince: a lovely
+pair they will make. Off with you, for I have to make up my sleep I
+have lost."
+
+But Zora was thinking.
+
+"I am silly indeed!" she said to herself. "Why do I fear that I shall
+not win the love of Prince Reginald? Only Hilda stands in my way."
+Then she said aloud,--
+
+"Lovely being! sweetest of all the race! Great as is my horror, I will
+consent to your will."
+
+Just then was heard a crackling in the dry leaves.
+
+"Only a snake," said the goblin. Zora trembled.
+
+"Will you promise me that Hilda will never trouble me again?"
+
+"I promise," said the goblin, with one of her merriest laughs, as
+loud and hoarse as the song of a frog.
+
+Just then a sigh was heard not far from the place where Zora stood.
+"There is some one here: we are watched," she whispered. But Gerula
+thought it the howling of the wind; for she was busily musing over the
+charm she was about to obtain of her cousins, the gnomes, and her eyes
+and ears were not as sharp as usual.
+
+She took from the ground her crooked staff.
+
+"Hush," said she; "if the sky were to fall on your head, you are not
+to speak; for now begins the charm."
+
+Then she drew a circle three times on the ground, with her staff, and
+said in low tones,--
+
+    "Hither, ye cousins, that come at my call:
+      The princess is young and fair;
+    Mix me a charm that shall bring her to woe
+      Spin me your vilest snare."
+
+A mist arose, in which Zora could see dim figures, one after another.
+Zora held her breath. Gerula muttered again in low tones,--
+
+    "Hilda is gentle, and dreams of no guile;
+      The little gnomes sit and weep;
+    'Make her,--if _must_ be,--a snowy wee lamb,
+      In the fold with her father's sheep.'"
+
+Zora clapped her hands in delight. But just then, a faint sound was
+heard, as of some one talking between the teeth. Then Zora spoke, and
+the charm was broken. She did not intend to speak; but asked, "What
+noise was that?" before she thought.
+
+"You have broken the charm," said the fairy. "The soft-hearted gnomes
+are unwilling to punish Hilda; but I hoped, by my craft, I could force
+them to keep her a lamb forever; or, at most, to let her grow to a
+sheep, and die by the knife.
+
+"I will now weave a new charm; but I fear me they will repent; and
+Hilda will not be got out of the way, after all. Not a word more, I
+warn you."
+
+So saying, the goblin made another circle three times, on the ground,
+and again muttered,--
+
+    "How long is fair Hilda a snowy wee lamb?
+      The little gnomes cry, 'We fear
+    Till comes a brave lion so tender and true,
+      She lives by his side a year.'"
+
+Zora clapped her hands again. "That is well," said she, "for never was
+a lion seen who could let a little helpless lamb pass his way without
+tearing it in pieces."
+
+"True," said the gnome, well pleased, "it has worked well. Hilda will
+never trouble you again: so creep home softly, and go to your rest:
+dream of bats and creeping snakes; and to-morrow, at sunrise, ask
+your cousin to walk with you in the park. Now adieu!"
+
+"Adieu, sweetest and best of fairies!" said Zora, drawing her silken
+mantle closely about her face. As she left the hideous cave, snakes
+hissed after her, and a bat flew in her face; but she had sold herself
+to evil, and walked on without fear of the creatures she so strongly
+resembled.
+
+Next morning, at the first peep of the sun, she cried, "Awake, dearest
+Hilda, joy of my life, and walk with me in the park. I have lost my
+diamond necklace; and last night I dreamed it was lying in the grass."
+
+So Princess Hildegarde opened her eyes, and hastened to follow her
+cousin; for her heart was quickly moved to any act of kindness.
+
+"What a fine flock of sheep!" cried Hilda, as they were walking in
+the park. "Such innocent"----
+
+She would have said more, but the words on her tongue were suddenly
+changed to tender bleatings; and even as Zora stood looking at her,
+she crouched down on all fours, dwindled in size, was enveloped in
+white fleece, and became a dumb lamb.
+
+Overwhelmed with horror and surprise, she raised her pleading, tearful
+eyes to the face of her cousin. But Zora gave a mocking laugh, and
+said, pointing her finger at her,--
+
+"Who now is the heir of the throne? Will they set the royal crown on a
+sheep's head, think you? Bravo, sweet creature! You may stand now
+between me and Prince Reginald as much as you please. It's all my
+work. I tell you once for all, I hate you, Hildegarde."
+
+Was this Zora's return for her cousin's love? The princess would fain
+have expressed her grief and amazement.
+
+"Pray don't try to talk, my bonny wee thing! It is not one of your
+gifts, at present. Your voice has ceased to be musical. I can sing now
+as well as you. Go to nibbling grass, deary, and a long life to you!"
+
+Then the treacherous Zora turned on her heel, and left her poor cousin
+to her mute despair.
+
+A search was made far and wide for the missing princess. Forests were
+hunted, rivers were dragged; but without avail. Deep gloom fell on the
+people, and the queen nearly died of sorrow. They all believed Hilda
+dead, all but Zora, who knew too well her cruel fate.
+
+Then Zora was treated like the king's daughter. Wherever she went,
+there were servants to follow her; yet none loved her, and behind her
+back they made wry faces, and said she looked like one who was
+tormented by evil fairies.
+
+But, alas for Zora, nothing more was seen of Prince Reginald. She
+watched the windows day after day, hoping to see him ride by on his
+coal-black steed; but he never came. Then she grew crosser than ever,
+and the frown on her brow ploughed deeper still. She dreamed every
+night of horrible goblins and slender green snakes.
+
+All the while, poor Hildegarde roamed about the park. The other lambs
+were content to nip the sweet grass, and frisk in the sun; but the
+princess remembered something better, for her soul did not sleep.
+
+The king himself, in his walks, was struck with the beauty of the
+lamb; its fleece was far softer, finer, and whiter than was common.
+He said to his chief shepherd, "Watch well yonder snow-white lamb, and
+give it particular care."
+
+For there was something in its soft dark eyes, as they were raised to
+his face, which stirred the king's heart, though he knew not why.
+
+One day the city was thrown into a great tumult. A lion had been seen
+in the thicket which bordered the park. The huntsmen, hearing of it,
+stole out privately to waylay him in a snare. He was caught alive by
+the king's favorite huntsman. It was agreed that such a fine lion had
+never been seen before; and the king ordered a strong iron cage for
+the beast, and made his favorite huntsman his keeper.
+
+Now the cage was in the midst of the park; and such was the terror of
+the sheep and deer, that none of them went near it.
+
+"I will go," thought poor Hildegarde; "let the lion tear me in
+pieces. Sooner would I perish, than live on, a poor wee lamb all my
+days."
+
+So she went up to the cage, though with a faint heart; but the lion
+put his paw out of the bars, and stroked her face, as if he would bid
+her welcome. The keeper reported the fact with great surprise.
+
+It may be that the beautiful brown eyes of the lamb tamed the fierce
+spirit of the lion; for they were human eyes, full of Hildegarde's own
+soul. Be that as it may, the lamb went every day to the cage, till the
+lion learned to watch for her, and gave a low growl of joy when he saw
+her coming. At last the keeper ventured to drop her carefully into the
+cage. The lion was beside himself with joy; and, after that, the lamb
+was placed in the cage every morning, and only taken out at night.
+
+Then the king invited all the noblemen into his park, to see the
+strange sight of a lion and a lamb living together in peace. And all
+the while Hildegarde loved her shaggy companion, and asked herself
+every day how it could be that a lion should have such speaking eyes
+and such a tender heart. But she almost believed that he was a human
+being, shut up, like herself, in a cruel disguise.
+
+At last, when a whole year had gone by, the time came for Hilda to be
+disenchanted; for the good little gnomes had declared that if she
+could live for a twelvemonth in peace with a lion, the charm would
+then be at an end.
+
+Hilda did not know this; but awoke at sunrise, and, going to drink,
+saw the image of her old self in the fountain; and faint voices
+repeated in chorus these lines:--
+
+    "Thrice welcome, sweet Hilda! the little gnomes say
+      At sunrise their charms shall end;
+    So go to the lion, and open the cage;
+      The prince is your own true friend."
+
+This was so sudden and unexpected that the happy Hilda could hardly
+believe her senses. She gazed at her jewelled fingers; she touched her
+velvet robe. "It is Hildegarde," said she dreamily; "where has she
+stayed so long?"
+
+She went to the cage; and, finding the key hanging on the outside,
+would fain have freed the poor lion, but thought of the terror it
+would cause the sheep and deer, and dared not do it.
+
+She put her soft white arms within the bars, saying,--
+
+"You have been a true friend to the little white lamb. She has found
+her tongue again, and can say so. Kind old lion, gentle prisoner,
+Hildegarde will not forget you."
+
+The noble beast looked at the disenchanted princess, and the next
+instant was changed to his true form; and, in place of a tawny lion,
+it was the brave Prince Reginald. Hilda blushed with joyful surprise,
+and would have taken down the key to unlock the cage, but the prince
+said,--
+
+"Loveliest Hildegarde, will you be my bride? Speak before you unlock
+the cage; for, if you say nay, Reginald must again become a dumb
+beast, and, as he has been for a year, so will he be for the rest of
+his days."
+
+Hildegarde cast down her eyes, and answered, "If so be the lion and
+the lamb could live side by side for a year, may not Reginald and
+Hilda dwell together in peace?"
+
+"Then," said the joyful Prince Reginald, "I pray thee unlock the
+cage."
+
+Now, as they walked together in the park, the prince told Hildegarde
+that he had loved her for a twelvemonth and a day.
+
+He described Zora's visit to the cruel goblin. He said that he himself
+had overheard the two talking together, had ground his teeth, and
+sighed. Then the gnomes, seeing his grief, had come asking him if he
+would be changed for a year, and maybe for life, into a lion; and for
+Hildegarde's sake he had gladly consented.
+
+Hearing all these things, the grateful princess wept, and said,--
+
+"Now I know that Prince Reginald is my own true friend."
+
+The prince led Hilda to the palace, and presented her to the king and
+queen. Great was the wonder, and loud the rejoicing throughout the
+land.
+
+The treacherous Zora was seen no more, but was changed into a slender
+green snake; and the king said she deserved her fate; "for, mark
+you," cried he, "there is no crime worse than to play false to those
+whom we pretend to love."
+
+But Prince Reginald and Hildegarde were married, and lived in peace
+all the rest of their lives.
+
+
+
+
+GOLDILOCKS.
+
+
+    "A king lived long ago,
+    In the morning of the world,"
+
+who had two children, Despard and Goldilocks. They were twin brother
+and sister, but no more alike than a queen-lily and a nightshade, a
+raven and a dove.
+
+Goldilocks was a bright young damsel, with hair like fine threads of
+gold, and a face so radiant that people questioned if the blood in her
+veins might not be liquid sunshine. Her eyes were as soft as violets;
+and her laugh was like the music of a spring robin.
+
+Despard, on the other hand, was as melancholy as an owl. His raven
+hair cast gloomy shadows, and his mournful eyes pierced you with a
+sudden sorrow. He was too low-spirited to chase butterflies, weave
+daisy-chains, and dance with Goldilocks among the flowers. He liked
+better to play at a mimic funeral, and deck himself as chief mourner,
+in a friar's robe with sable plumes. He could never understand why
+laughing Goldilocks should object to making believe die, and be buried
+in the large jewel-coffer, which stood for a tomb.
+
+He always said that, if he lived to be a man, he should grow all the
+more wretched, and creep over the earth like a great black cloud. When
+Despard spoke so hopelessly, Goldilocks paused in her song or her
+play, and stealthily brushed a rare tear from her eye. She was afraid
+her brother's words might prove true.
+
+These children lived in what is called the Golden Age, when the
+rivers flowed with milk and wine, and yellow honey dripped from
+oak-trees. Their childhood would probably have lasted forever; but the
+Silver Age came on, and every thing was changed. Then, it was
+sometimes too warm, and sometimes too cold. People began to live in
+caves, and weave houses of twigs. The king, their father, died, and
+went, so it was said, to the "Isles of the Blessed."
+
+The children were shipwrecked upon a foreign shore, all because of a
+sudden swell of the ocean. Here they were desolate and homesick. The
+strange people among whom they had fallen did not know they were the
+children of a king. No one was left to care for them but their old
+nurse, named Sibyl.
+
+This aged woman was growing lame, and her hair was gray; yet she loved
+the twins, and would spin all the day long, to buy black bread for
+them, and now and then a little choice fruit.
+
+"Alas," she sighed, "alas, for the Golden Age, when the forests had
+never been robbed, when oxen were not called to draw the plough, and
+the beautiful earth laughed, and tossed up fruit and flowers without
+waiting to be asked!"
+
+The frocks that Sibyl made for Goldilocks were coarse; but on fair
+spring days she took from the chest a delicate, rosy robe, embroidered
+with gold, and smiled to see how it adorned the child.
+
+But as for Despard, she had no hope that he would ever look well in
+any thing. She would part Goldilocks' wonderful hair, and say,--
+
+"Old Sibyl knows who is her love; she knows who would be glad to give
+her pomegranates and grapes, when she is too old to spin, and too weak
+to sit up."
+
+Little Goldilocks would laughingly reply,--
+
+"And I know, too: when I am a woman I shall weave a net of my hair,
+and fish up all the gold that has sunk to the beds of the rivers. Then
+I know who will have a set of hard gold teeth, and a silver
+rocking-chair."
+
+"Thou art lovely enough to be a goddess, little Goldilocks. And what
+wilt thou do with the rest of the gold?"
+
+"Oh, Despard shall have all he can carry; for Despard is good, let
+people say what they may. And I will have a crown made for him, with
+diamonds set in it as plenty as plums in a pudding."
+
+"Listen, my children," said the old Sibyl, sadly: "there will be no
+one to give me grapes and pomegranates when I am faint and weak. I can
+read by the stars that you are soon to go on a pilgrimage, and leave
+your old nurse behind. You may well weep, my good little boy: there is
+to be no rest for your feet till you have travelled over the whole
+world, from north to south."
+
+Despard groaned aloud; but Goldilocks clapped her hands and laughed.
+"Oh, let us start to-night," she cried.
+
+"When the sun-god has made twelve journeys in his winged boat," sighed
+Sibyl, "and when the young moon has arisen out of the ocean, then you
+may go."
+
+And, at the appointed time, the faithful nurse, with many tears,
+prepared her foster-children for their long journey. She took from a
+worm-eaten coffer some family heirlooms, which had been lying since
+the days of the Golden Age, enveloped in rose-leaves and gold paper.
+
+She placed in the hand of Despard a dagger with a jewelled hilt, a
+quiver of poisoned arrows, and a glittering sword, with a blade
+sharper than a serpent's tooth.
+
+But to Goldilocks she gave a flask of smooth, fragrant oil, a vase of
+crystal-bright water, and a fan made of the feathers of the beautiful
+bird of Paradise.
+
+Kissing the little pilgrims, she said,--
+
+"These gifts have been saved for you these many years: use them as an
+inward voice shall whisper you: I give you my blessing. The gods
+attend you! Farewell."
+
+The children at first walked on sorrowfully; but soon the gay spirits
+of Goldilocks rebounded, and she waltzed hither and thither, like a
+morsel of thistle-down.
+
+"See, brother," said she, "we almost fly! What a glorious thing it is
+to go on a pilgrimage! I am glad the beautiful Silver Age has come,
+and Jupiter has given us leave to take a peep at the world!"
+
+"All very well for you to say," moaned Despard; "you flit about as if
+you had wings on your feet; while, as for me, it is true I move with
+equal speed, but so painfully that I wonder my footprints are not
+stained with blood."
+
+Soon the children observed, not far off, a party of youths rowing on
+the bosom of a lake. They sat in a rocking, unsteady little bark, but
+were in gay spirits, blowing bubbles, watching idle clouds, and
+throwing up empty shouts to be caught up and echoed by the hills.
+
+"I wish we had not seen these happy people," sighed Despard; "for, if
+you can believe me, sister, I really feel as if I must pelt them with
+my arrows."
+
+So saying, little Despard began to fire his poisonous darts at random.
+
+"Why, brother," cried Goldilocks, in alarm, "are you possessed by the
+furies? Take care how you aim, or you will surely do mischief."
+
+Even as she spoke, several of the gay youths dropped to the bottom of
+the boat, apparently wounded. Their companions pushed for the shore;
+and Goldilocks almost flew, to pour into the red wounds her brother
+had made the smooth healing oil from her flask.
+
+"Poor dears," said she, pitying their pain, "I have done my best; and,
+see! these ugly gashes are almost healed. I cannot promise you,
+though, that they will not leave scars."
+
+The youths thanked the sweet girl, and assured her it was almost a
+pleasure to be wounded, if one might be nursed by such gentle hands as
+hers. But as for Despard, it was hardly strange that they should look
+upon the poor boy as a wicked little highwayman; or, at best, a saucy,
+careless fellow.
+
+Some of the older youths, however, patted him on the shoulder, and
+said, "For your sweet sister's sake we can even endure your pranks."
+
+"Do not despise me," said the boy, sadly; "for as I am moved, so must
+I do. Not for the whole world would I fire a poisonous arrow, if the
+mighty Jove did not compel me."
+
+As they walked on, Despard, against his will, flung into the air a
+quantity of winged torments, which he found stowed away in his wallet,
+such as gnats, wasps, and flies.
+
+"There, now," said sweet Goldilocks, ready to weep, "why could you not
+look before you, and see those pretty children playing yonder in that
+fragrant meadow?"
+
+"I saw them," said Despard; "but what good did that do?"
+
+"O brother, I wish the Golden Age would come again, and then you
+would cease scattering mischief and trouble."
+
+The little ones, suddenly stopped in their play by the army of
+insects, ran hither and thither over the meadow, screaming with pain.
+But Goldilocks appeared in the midst of them, with her shining hair,
+violet eyes, and laugh like the music of a spring robin.
+
+"Come to me," said she; "let me kiss away the stings."
+
+In a very short space the children were soothed, and had forgotten
+their trouble. Then they threw their little arms about Goldilocks'
+neck, and begged her to stay and play with them.
+
+"Sweet children, it is my mission,--so the stars say,--to travel all
+over this world, from north to south. But, for all that, I will frolic
+with you till the sun sets."
+
+"Will the sad boy come too?" asked the children.
+
+Goldilocks shook her bright curls. "He is planting a garden," said
+she; "no need to ask him; he hears nothing while he is at play, and
+his games are as solemn as midnight."
+
+The children made believe that the beautiful Goldilocks, in her
+rose-colored dress, with her beaming hair and flying feet, was a great
+butterfly, which they were trying to catch. Now here, now there, the
+glowing butterfly flitted from flower to flower, leading her followers
+a merry chase. Every child thought to seize and hold her, for a kiss.
+She laughed; and the breezes danced with her hair, like--
+
+    "Zephyr with Aurora playing,
+    As he met her once a-Maying."
+
+But before any one had kissed or even touched her, she had
+disappeared, leaving the children gazing into the air, and seeking
+their late companion with tearful eyes.
+
+Goldilocks had only gone back to Despard, who was still planting
+flower-seeds.
+
+"What a miserable game," said Goldilocks; "it is worse than playing
+funeral! Who thought you could make flowers grow? Our old nurse said
+it was only Demeter, the goddess, who could do that. Here, now, you
+have called up a bristling crop of thistles and brambles? On my word,
+Despard, it is a pity!"
+
+"Well, well, Goldilocks, see what you can make of them. I am doomed to
+work, though I don't wish it; and my work is always disagreeable,
+though I can't tell why!"
+
+Goldilocks knelt, and blew on the prickly plants with her sweet
+breath. By the nodding of the next breeze, they were changed to roses,
+violets, and hare-bells.
+
+"It is pleasant to see any thing smile, even a flower," said
+Goldilocks, laughing as she spoke.
+
+"I think," replied Despard, "that this is a strange pilgrimage. I
+believe our very thoughts are alive. I wish I could stop thinking."
+
+By and by they came to a rude house,--as fine a one, though, as people
+in the Silver Age had yet learned how to build. Despard paused, and
+knocked gently. "Why linger here?" whispered his sister.
+
+"I know not," sighed the boy, "but so must I do."
+
+"How now, little ones? you startled me so!" cried a woman, opening the
+door by the width of a crack.
+
+"Let us come in," said Despard, sorrowfully; "we are two little
+wanderers; and our hairs are wet with night-dews."
+
+"Come in, then, little ones, and welcome; but never, at any one's
+door, knock so loud again," added the woman, pressing her hand against
+her heart.
+
+"I only tapped with the ends of my fingers," said the boy.
+
+"Ah," said the woman, "it was louder to me than thunder." Then, after
+she had set before them a supper of bread and milk, she rocked her
+baby, and sang to it a sweet cradle-song about mother Juno and high
+Olympus.
+
+The children lay down on beds of rushes; and Goldilocks, soothed by
+the lullaby, fell asleep; but soon awoke, and saw her brother leaning,
+on tiptoe, over the osier basket. The baby's face looked, in the
+moonlight, white and pinched; and its sick hands were pressed together
+like two withered rose-leaves.
+
+"Let me kiss him," whispered Goldilocks smiling. But bitter tears
+rolled down Despard's cheeks. Drawing his little sword from its
+sheath, he pricked the baby's heart till one red drop, the life-drop,
+stained the steel. The sick baby ceased to breathe.
+
+"O Despard, what have you done?" cried Goldilocks, seizing his arm.
+
+"I know not," said the boy; "but as my heart moves me, so must I do."
+
+Hearing voices, the mother awoke, and, as her habit was, turned at
+once to the cradle. The baby lay there beautiful and still; the
+pinched look gone, and its furrowed brow smoothed into a baby's smile.
+The mother wept bitterly.
+
+"Ah, little stranger," said she, turning to Despard, "I knew you when
+I let you in. Why did I open the door for you?"
+
+"Poor mother," said the boy sorrowfully, "if you had not opened the
+door, I must have come in by the window."
+
+But Goldilocks threw her soft arms about the woman's neck, and
+comforted her till it was morning, and the "gilded car of day" had
+risen from the ocean. The tears on her cheeks she dried with her fan,
+made of magical feathers.
+
+When the children set out again on their journey, the woman gave
+Goldilocks a loving kiss, and then embraced Despard, saying,--
+
+"For the sake of your sweet sister, I love even you."
+
+"Poor little brother," said Goldilocks when they had gone farther on
+their journey, "you are as good as I; but how is it? you make people
+weep, while I must go with you to dry the tears you call forth."
+
+"I am a black cloud," groaned Despard, "you a sunbeam."
+
+"But I like to have a cloud to shine on," said loving little
+Goldilocks.
+
+Footsore and weary, the little pilgrims travelled on; and, when they
+had gone from north to south, and back again, the Sibyl met them with
+tender kisses; and, when they were refreshed, bade them go forth
+again.
+
+"For," said she, "this world is always new, my dears. The people who
+are born to-day were not here yesterday; and every mortal must see the
+faces of my foster-children."
+
+It was now the Brazen Age, and Despard and Goldilocks had grown to be
+a youth and maiden; but still they travelled on. The Iron Age came;
+and Despard's raven hair was frosted; but Goldilocks' curls never
+faded. Let her live as long as live she may, she can never grow old.
+
+Their pilgrimage is not over yet; nor will it be while the earth
+revolves about the sun. The brother and sister come to every house;
+they knock at every door.
+
+To all the children who open their eyes upon the light, come Despard
+and Goldilocks, the bitter and the sweet of life, the twin angels of
+Happiness and Sorrow.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+Archaic and variable spelling is preserved as printed. Punctuation
+errors have been repaired. Hyphenation has been made consistent.
+Typographic errors (omitted letters) have been repaired.
+
+On page 61, seen has been amended to then--"One sees, now and then,
+stupid human beings, ..."
+
+On page 158, a reference to Hilda has been amended to Zora--"He
+described Zora's visit to the cruel goblin."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fairy Book, by Sophie May
+
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