"Hark! is that my wind harp?—why, it sounds like water dropping and gurgling over stones."
"It is the song of a mountain brook that my friends are singing as they dance over your harp. Look!"
Phil looked, and saw the flock of fairies like white butterflies swarming again over his harp, and heard the soft sweet singing which kept time to their steps.
"Oh, how beautiful! how beautiful!" said Phil.
"When you hear a brook singing, you must remember us," said the fairy.
"Indeed I will; but I am afraid I shall never hear one: only the hoarse cries of the street and the rumbling of wagons come to me here."
"Ah, better times are coming; then you will not need us."
Phil lay still in his chair, listening intently; the white figures glanced in shadowy indistinctness across the window, only the starry ray from each little brow lighting their dance. They swept up and down, and swayed like flowers in a breeze, and still the little clear notes of their song fell like dripping water in cool cascades. Now it flowed smoothly and softly, again it seemed to dash and foam among pebbly nooks.
"Does it rest you? Are you better?" asked the one little fairy who did all the talking.
"Oh, so much!" said Phil.