"Have I not sung to you at night when you were weary with dancing?" warbled the nightingale.
"Have we not sheltered you from the fierce heat of the sun, and the beating of the pitiless rain?" rustled the trees, indignantly.
"Heartless!" muttered the wind, rushing rudely past her; "to injure those who love you so much."
"I shall never see fairy-land again!" murmured Violet. But she had too gentle a heart to persist, so she sadly retraced her steps, and bade the Fire-King take back his fatal gift.
That evening, she and her sister fairies went to the owl and told him of the ill success of her mission. The owl heard her to the end with great gravity, and then said, severely: "Of course! Anyone with any sense would have known that wings forged by the Fire Spirits must burn everything they touched."
Violet would have liked to remind him that it was he who bade her go to the King of the Fire Spirits, but he looked so very severe, as he sat blinking solemnly in the moonlight, that she was afraid, and only said, humbly—
"Please what shall I do now?"
"Go to the King of the Snow Spirits, of course!" said the owl, rather crossly, for he wanted to go to sleep; "if fire is too hot, you had better try snow."
"Alas! what shall I do?" said Violet, very sadly. "The Snow-King lives far off by the North Pole, and I have no wings to bear me to him over the seas."
Then a gentle fluttering was heard in the trees, and a sea-bird alighted at Violet's feet.