Then Violet told him that she had studied evenings so long it seemed to her she could teach in the village school; but she was poor, and had no friends to speak a good word for her with the committee.
"What is your name?" asked the gentleman, suddenly.
"Violet."
"I thought so; and what has become of Toady?"
It was the doctor who had mended Toady's leg so many years ago, and the young man who sat reading on the sofa was no other than Alfred, his son, with the fairy Ambition still keeping him hard at work, and making him care for little else but books.
He looked up though, and listened to Violet's story, and, as he watched her, actually closed his book, and always afterwards closed it if she entered the room; for fairy Love was stronger than Ambition, and he could no more see in the purple light which fell from her wings than an owl could in broad noonday.
"But where is Narcissa?" asked Violet.
The father's face grew sad as he told how, the very day they were at the hut, in riding home the carriage was overturned, and Narcissa not only lamed for life, but thrown against a tree, one of whose branches entered her eye and put it out.
When Violet heard of this her eyes filled with tears, and forgetting all the unkindness she had received from this girl, she only remembered how handsome Narcissa was, and how happy she seemed as they drove away.
And the fairy Love shed such a beautiful light around the poor berry girl, that Ambition hid in a corner, and Alfred didn't think of his books again that day.