“Rubywings,” he repeated. “It is a delightful name, my child; but why do they call thee Rubywings?”
“Because I am Queen of the Butterflies,” she [[269]]replied; “and because I am also the messenger of Peace and Charity to the good of the Earth. Invisible to all else of mortal birth am I. Peace! Let us onward.”
Brilliantly flashed the wings of the butterflies as they wafted the cloud-car, light and joyous as the golden orioles that flew before them. Here they fluttered among curious rocks of veined and marbled stone, here and there soft mosses, which grew in little clumps, some in scales, like trays on which stood silver cups for the fays to drink out of. Then ferns peeped out with their long tresses that blew backwards and forwards in the wind. A trickle of water began to flow from a deep cranny, and tall plants blossomed along its course. Suddenly they came upon a wide, beautiful plain, robed with such lovely, silk-like grass, only to be found in these regions. Here tall palms tossed their feathery heads, while creepers, bearing flowers, streaked with gold and brown, climbed about their trunks.
Still onward, with but a passing glimpse at the emerald carpet beneath, until they reached a fine lagoon, in the midst of which an island appeared to view, so fair and beautiful that the rest of the landscape turned bleak and barren by comparison. Over this wondrous place Rubywings guided the [[270]]cloud-car. Landing where a mossy bank sloped gently to the water, the fairy led her companion into such a charming garden that a burst of rapture broke from his lips at sight of it. The most refined imagination of mortal man never conceived such a world of rare beauty. No seasons came and went here, the flowers bloomed eternally. Like a jewelled crown encircling the brows of a queen, so a vast ring of pale blossoms surrounded this bower of loveliness—primrose, with her beseeching face, shy snowdrop, loving violet, with her whisper of summer, glad hyacinth, ringing a peal of bells, whose faint tinkle came upon the mortal’s ears, like subdued melody.
Rubywings pointed out a soft couch of ferns, bordered with lilies, and said,—
“Rest thee here awhile, O mortal. Sleep, dream, bewilder thyself. When thou wakest, thine eyes shall open upon the ministering spirits of Nature, which I go to bring around thee.
“ ‘Bi baby bunting,
I am going hunting
For the shadows as they fly,
For the winds to waft them by;