How the Fairy Violet Lost and Won Her Wings

by Marianne L. B. Ker

"Alas! is there no help for you, sweet Violet?" wept the wind, wandering in and out among the lofty trees, rocking and swaying them like slender bulrushes in his fierce sorrow.

But to each and all Violet replied only by a glad quiet smile.

"Patience!" she said, gently; "Mother Nature will help me in her own time."

So she returned to her work among the violets; and when they had all died, and the spring had gone, and her sister fairies flew away to fairy-land, she still smiled, though a little sadly, and bade them farewell without a shade of discontent in her brave, gentle voice.

"Now, I must find some work," she said to herself, when her wistful eyes could no longer discern the flutter of their wings in the azure sky.

And she soon found plenty to do.

Now it was binding up the wound of some stricken bird, or raising some crushed flower, and sprinkling its drooping leaves with cooling dew, and now it was closing the eyelids of a tired child who had thrown himself down to rest beneath the forest shade, and singing softly in his ear a fairy lullaby, till he fell asleep. Sometimes she would perch herself on the shoulder of some sleeping wayfarer by the roadside, and whisper in his ear sweet and tender words that made him dream of his home, and of the mother sleeping so peacefully in the churchyard far away, till he started from his sleep and went on his way with a touched and softened heart. Every day Fairy Violet found some kindly deed to do, and every day Mother Nature, looking lovingly on her child, saw the time was drawing nearer when she should receive her reward.

One day as she was wandering through one of the by-streets of a crowded city, she was attracted by a plaintive voice that proceeded from one of the low-roofed, badly built houses.

"Put the geranium where I can see it, mother," the voice was saying, "I love to lie back and watch it."

A woman came forward at these words and altered the position of the plant, which Fairy Violet had already noticed as being rather faded, and in want of her skill to brighten the colours.