“Good, my child! what I am now going to say to you will, I fear, be rather painful. It is this:—by the time you get home you will find I have taken away the beautiful magic bird. You remember that it was but a loan until my return?”
“Oh, dear Fairy! don’t! don’t! Pray don’t take it away,” cried the child, bursting into tears.
“Hush, my pretty one! Remember you are not, and never will be, without the teaching of beautiful things. Has not every bird in the skies a voice for you? Do not the rainbows speak of love and beauty? Do not your own roses breathe sweet affection on you? And the wind, and the rain, and the stars, and the trees, have they not already been teachers of wisdom to you? My darling, you are not forgotten! ‘Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth forth knowledge’ for you and for all that are willing to learn.”
The fairy vanished. Mary bowed her head and dried up her tears. She went into the house, kissed her aunt and cousins affectionately, and went home with Johnny in the pony chaise.
Her after life was something like this experience of her youth. It had its rainy season and its disappointments; it had its rainbow of hope and beauty; it had its winds and its storms; its sunshine and its calms; and it had, too, a still small voice within it singing like a magic bird. By listening to what it said and obeying it, she made it on the whole a life of happiness and beauty.
The Electric Telegraph.
Most wondrous specimen of art,
With Nature’s laws combined,