"When I waked up the stars were shining over me, and I seemed to be set into the dewy ground, I had lain there so long. I positively thought for a moment I had been actually crushed, instead of only dreaming it, and that my body lay dead beneath me; for I could neither stir hand nor foot, and every thing seemed so cold and distinct about me. I saw a moment after that this was because I was chilled through by the night air and dew; but the sensation was so pleasant—to feel free like a spirit—that I remained just as I waked. How I did think of every thing that night! There I was, lost; but I had lost all fear of that, so long as I was sure of being there myself. This seemed a new starting-point, which it was strange I had never thought of. Suppose I should be where I had been in the morning; I should know almost as little where I was as now; for without that girl's help I could never find my way back to the school; and if I were there I should still be lost, unless I knew my position in respect to every part of the world; and if I knew all that, still the earth would be a ship without a compass, unless I knew its place in reference to all the stars. The only place that I felt certain about, after all, was where I was, for I kept coming back to that; and then it seemed to me I was a ball of yarn, that had unrolled as it went, and now all I had to do was to wind it up to where it started from. Would not this lead, I thought, at last to the point from which all things have their place? Then I remembered the long, sharp teeth of that little squirrel, and how every animal has an organ which enables him to earn his own living in his own way, and it seemed unreasonable to think that man had not one to enable him to follow that clew. I had thought, at one time, of praying for a direct interposition of Providence, which I had heard was the shortest way of leading one out of trouble, for it seemed so much more direct, the clear space above, with nothing between me and the stars, than to be losing myself farther and farther among those black woods and rocks. But then, I thought, what is prayer but feeling our way along that thread? and is not my sense of this the faculty by which I may follow it up? That thought was like a new sense of touch, and I felt the thread within my hand, and was certain that every thing has within itself the way out.

"While these thoughts were passing through my mind, they seemed gradually to become audible, and when they passed away, the same tone went on; and as I listened, I could hear, in the stillness of the night, the dripping and flowing of some little stream, far back in the mountain. As soon as it was light, I followed the sound, and then the brook, till it led me down the mountain to the open fields; and where do you think, girls, I came out? Why, up there on the cleared part of the mountain, directly in front of the school house."

"I saw you when you came in at the gate," exclaimed Fanny; "and what a sight you were! But that is always the way; we always come back to where we began. It is the reason, I believe, why we never have better stories nowadays."

"You must allow there is some difference between coming back to the beginning, and merely being there because we have never been away. As for the story, I told you at the outset that you had nothing to expect. But come, Leonora; I have given you time for your point of view, as you call it; or perhaps, as I have come to a full stop, I can furnish you with one."

"You could not give me a better, for I have been thinking all along that your story would almost do for mine."

"Do look, girls, at what Nora has been drawing," exclaimed Kate. "Here we all are just like life, only so much better. How charming it is, when we are all going on so, without thinking of any thing but what we are doing, to find we have been making a scene for some one else! It is just like sitting talking in a boat, and looking up suddenly, and finding ourselves afloat on the lake."

"And you know I always enjoy more sitting on the shore, and seeing you, than being in the boat myself," said Leonora. "It seems odd, perhaps, that such a scene of life as that is should remind me of Linda when she waked up and thought she was lying dead beside herself. But did you ever, Linda, feel more alive than at that moment?"

"I believe I had never thought of myself at all before. You know I said that all the time I was so troubled because I did not know where I was, I never once thought of being any where."

"That, to be sure, is the most important, for it would be hardly worth while to go round the world to find where our house was situated, and to come back and find it occupied by some one else. That is often the case with those who travel from home, and I believe we must come back every night to be sure of not losing it."

"How every thing brings in every thing else!" said Kate. "I believe you will never begin."

"I soon learned that," answered Leonora, "and that brings me to the beginning of my story, if you will have it that I am to tell one, though I would rather tell it in my own way, by drawing the illustrations to Linda's, which, as I said, would almost answer for mine; but why should it not, as we were each to tell something in our experience resembling Clara's?"

"Poor Clara! I had almost forgotten her," said Fanny.

"None are poor but those who think themselves rich. How proud I felt of my first poor little drawings! How well I remember them! The house, and the fence before it, and the lattice in the garret window, and then the great elm and the brook, and by degrees the distant hill behind, for I kept adding to my pictures as I advanced, having to go back farther and farther for a point of view, till at last the hill on the outskirts of the village, overlooking the whole, was my favorite spot for sketching, if I may dignify my stiff little achievements by such a term. Still it was the house that was the centre of the picture; but, as Kate says, one thing leads to every thing, and I found there was no end to the things I must introduce; and yet they did not seem to belong to the house, but to be fastened to it in some way. I could not get them off, and remember, when some one was saying that a painter of his acquaintance could not get his pictures off his hands, feeling a certain pride in knowing that I was contending with one of the regular difficulties of the art. But at last I succeeded, in some degree, in getting my picture right, and did not altogether disbelieve what every one said at home, that it was beautiful. As I was led, however, farther and farther back, by the necessity for a wider view, the house began to have rather a subordinate look; but still it was my home, and nothing seemed a picture without it. As yet I had had no instruction, as you would easily believe if you should see my productions of that period, until one day, as I was bending over my drawing board, (I was very particular about my drawing paper then, and always had the best,) and had just got in the house, a shade fell across my picture, and looking up, I saw a young man with camp stool and portfolio slung across his shoulder, looking down at my work. I drew a little back, that he might see it better, rather pleased that he should see that I also was in that line. He glanced at the landscape, then looked again at my sketch with a smile. He had not said a word, and yet the opinion of all my family, aunts, cousins, and all, admiring my picture on a thanksgiving day after dinner, would not have weighed a straw with me against that smile. Yet he asked me to go on with it, which I did lest he should go away, looking up now and then, and seeing him regarding my work with the half-curious interest with which one would watch an ant-hill, till at last I threw down my pencil, and asked him if he would not oblige me with a sketch of his own.

"He gave one look at the landscape. What a look!—it was a new revelation to me in art,—like an eagle taking in the whole view at one sweep. He seemed to hold every hill and valley fixed with his eye as in a vice, and to weigh the place and proportion of every thing as in a balance, on the firm line of his mouth. All at one glance too; for, without unstrapping his camp stool, he placed his portfolio on his knee, kneeling on the other, and hardly looking up twice, handed me in a few minutes a complete sketch. I say a complete sketch, for I had not known till then that a sketch may be as complete as a finished picture. But I forget that my story also must be a sketch, and I will not spoil it by details which cannot be interesting to you.

"As soon as I saw his sketch, I found, to my astonishment, that he had left out the house altogether; and even the village he had put away at one side as of no importance. On mentioning the oversight, he took out his eye-glass and looked at the house, asking me what particular importance I attached to it. I timidly replied that I lived there.

"'Ah,' he exclaimed, and apologized for his omission, saying he would not forget so important a feature in the landscape. 'Come' said he, 'you shall be my guide over these hills, to which I am a stranger. Let us forget the house for a while, and look up a new view of the village, which does not come in very well here.' How strange it seemed to me that he should speak of the village where I had been born, as a thing to be introduced here or there at his convenience. Already his words seemed to set it afloat; but when, after a long detour, leaving it quite out of sight, we came suddenly upon the edge of the mountain, where the whole valley lay like a toy village almost directly under our feet, it was like a fairy enchantment. There was the actual village, every house and garden in its place, so near that it could be seen distinctly, and yet so far down that it had a foreign look. Then he took out a spy-glass, and adjusting it, handed it to me. 'Now for the house,' said he; and after carrying the tube over half the village, I exclaimed for joy. There I was directly at the gate; it was at the back of the house, and the forenoon work was going on as usual. My father was standing at the door giving some silent direction to the man, who seemed to answer him without saying a word, and Jane was going about like a historical personage, hanging out clothes.

"It was exactly as if I had been looking at a place I had been reading about in some old book; and yet the persons were so familiar to me, more so than ever. I handed the spy-glass to the stranger that he might share my delight, but he did not care to look. 'That is the way,' said he, 'all places look to me. To the artist the familiar is strange, and the strange familiar.'

"I only thought the remark was strange, and wondered if it would ever be familiar to me.

"Then he went on to describe the village as if he were looking at it, with me, through the glass. 'Do you see the old woman at the window, looking down the street? And the man asleep on the church steps? And the single figure crossing the green?' Just as if they were all regular figures in a picture, and not people who happened to be there at that moment, as they really were.

"'Now for something new!' he said, putting the glass in his pocket and leading me over the mountain. But nothing seemed new to him. He appeared to look at every view we came to as if he saw it for the first time after a long absence, and remembered every tree and stone in it. When I told him so, he sat down, and opening his portfolio in a place unlike any I had ever seen before, and not, I thought, particularly interesting, he began to sketch, and to tell me at the same time, so that I should not be tired, the old story which we have all read, (the first, I believe, we ever read,) but which I let him tell, it was so new as he told it, about the little child that was carried away by the gypsies, and years after, when they came back to his native country, strolled off till he came to the house where he was born; and the sense by degrees came over him that he had been there before, and it all became clearer and clearer, until at last the gate and the doorstep were no dream; and as he went over the whole story, he would give a touch here and a touch there, that seemed to waken a recollection in me, as if I were the little child he was telling about, coming nearer and nearer, till, with a few strokes, he finished the picture; and there, to be sure, was our very house, and I was the little child he had been telling about. It was all perfectly clear to me, though it is a mystery even now how he could have made it so. When I looked again, I saw it was not exactly our house; and yet it looked even more like it than if it had been, and there was nothing in it that I could have altered without spoiling the picture.

"Then he would walk on, and sit down again and take another view with a different house, but with the same home-like look, and yet exactly suiting the landscape. And at last he would draw places without any houses at all, and yet as if a human being was looking at them, to whom they were in some way a home, just as he drew my bonnet and portfolio on the edge of a hill, so that any one would have known I was somewhere about.

"As we went back, at the close of the day, every object he pointed out seemed to light up with a life of its own, and every step we took was like finding a bird's nest in the grass. He parted with me in the road, saying that he had left his horse somewhere on the hill where he had found me in the morning, and that he should remember the day with pleasure.

"As for me, I thought, as I walked slowly homeward towards the fading sunset, that I never should remember any thing else. When I have read since of the great days of Creation, which are believed to have been years of our time, I have thought of that day, and it has not seemed necessary that the old time should have been different from ours. It seemed an age since I had left the village in the morning, and every thing looked as it does when we go home at the end of term."

"We seem so much older, too, then," said Fanny, "and as if we had seen so much, and should meet ourselves at the gate, little things as we were when we left."

"I thought of myself, and my little sketches of the morning, as if I had been a tame pigeon pecking about before the door, with its little, short feet; and now I had seen the eagle which I had heard of, and his great wings had opened for me all the wide space behind the rim of the hills which enclosed the village. And yet it looked all the more like home for being encompassed with that great region. Every thing looked so old, with a new meaning, and as I approached the house, it looked as it had when I saw it through the spy-glass, and the gate, as I opened it in the stillness of the twilight, seemed to say, with its creak, 'The familiar made strange;' for these words were to me like a sentence in old German text in an English book.

"As I was dressing for tea, I heard the sound of a horse's hoofs, and a moment after a knock at the door. Could I ever know the meaning of those other words of his, 'The strange made familiar,' as I did when I heard it in the sound of the stranger's voice?

"He had called with my portfolio, which he had carried for me, and I had forgotten to take from him. I heard my father inviting him in, and when I went down, there was my eagle sitting at the tea table, bending forward, courteously, to take a cup from my sister, like any other visitor.

"'You see I am keeping my promise,' he said, 'not to forget the house which I treated with such neglect in the morning.'

"I was too bewildered with the joy of my surprise to make any reply; and taking my seat, which happened to be next his, I could only sit in silence, and try to comprehend my happiness. It was as if I understood perfectly the answer to some riddle, without knowing what the riddle was. The china on the table, and the people, had always given me the feeling of being fixed to it, like a doll's tea set, where the table and dishes are all in one piece; and it made no difference how learned or profound my father's visitors might be; when they spoke it gave me the unpleasant sensation of taking up your cup and having the saucer come with it.

"Then, too, we were all so near at home, that we never gave each other room; and if we did, it was by going away entirely.

"But here was a person who set every one off at a respectful distance, himself among the rest, and yet preserved their relation to himself and each other by encouraging their peculiarities, outside of that limit, and set us all agoing by placing us at the right point of view, with, in some mysterious way, the common sense of the whole party as spectator; so that we were like figures in a landscape, which, while we were looking at them, I knew, without knowing why, to be ourselves.

"Even grandmother, who always comes dead upon a stranger, and there is no shaking her off, could not get within the charmed circle, but had to keep in her orbit; and really she appeared like quite an entertaining old lady, and all the more so for her peculiar style of conversation, which is apt to be the family consternation at table. Our little group that evening reminded me of a system of stars revolving around each other, with a general motion of the whole in reference to some point without, which I had a sense of, though I did not understand it; but I felt sure that our stranger did; and this, I think, was what attracted me towards him, for I felt the need of something out of the sphere of everlasting praises for wretched little drawings, which I knew were only good so far as their defects showed there was something better. Now, he stood on the outside of all the things that he drew, and I knew he could see them as they were."

"I am sure I am on the outside of all you are saying," interrupted Kate. "Which of us was it who hoped to get rid of moralizing by calling upon Nora for a story?"

"Pictures themselves, as Anna said, may perhaps have no moral; at least, they are not so prosy in telling it as I am; but those who have no moral, no idea, are not usually the persons who paint them. But I see I have been going out of my province; for a picture, whatever else it may be, should be intelligible, and the painter's account of himself ought to be no less so. So I will not tell you how I learned from one person, who had a place to stand upon, how nothing can be seen as it is by one who has none. I have at least learned to prefer standing on my feet to having even so excellent a teacher as Mr. Moran for palanquin bearer."

"No doubt he would be glad if we all would relieve him, in the same way, of a burden which he carries with such resignation," said Anna. "But he certainly will be much indebted to you for the valuable information you can give him in regard to your fixed point, although I believe the only point he thinks of when here, is that on the clock, which marks the end of his hour."

"I am not so presumptuous as to think a school girl's ideas could be of any value to an artist like him, though, if we may believe men, they all draw from us their best inspirations. Perhaps, after all, it is the destiny of us girls, in some unconscious way, with the finer instinct which men attribute to us, to spend our lives in winding up Linda's ball of yarn for them to throw out again."

"Thank Heaven the ball is wound up so far!" said Kate. "Now, Ella, do break off the thread, and give it to the fairies to play with."

"O, yes, Ella, do! After all this scraping and tuning, let us have the dance at last," said Effie.

"Positively I have not a word of it ready," answered Ella. I thought of something when I spoke, but it was like turning a kaleidoscope; with every turn it became something else. And then I began to listen to Linda, and to Leonora, and my story became so confused with theirs, that you would not know it for a fairy story, if I should tell it to you; but if you will let me off until I disentangle it, Anna, I know, will take my place, for she never wants a moment's notice. If you should wake her up in the middle of the night, and ask her for a story, she would immediately begin with 'Once upon a time,' and go on telling it after we were all asleep. Come, Anna, take the kaleidoscope, and I will give you the princess, the castle, the grim father, and the disappointed suitors for beads to put in it. So give it a turn, and let us see what it will be."

"There was once a princess, who was the most beautiful who had ever been seen—"

"O, of course!" interrupted Kate. "Who ever heard of a princess, in a story, who was not?"

"Did you ever hear, my dear, of one who was so beautiful that of all her maids of honor (each of whom was so beautiful herself, that a whole village would go crazy about her if she but drove through it) not one, however they might dispute for the preference among themselves, ever thought of raising the least pretension to beauty in her presence? There never was but one such, and that was my princess.

"Although her father, who was the wealthiest and haughtiest prince of all that region, lived in a castle so grand and stately, and although in sight of the highway, separated from it by grounds so severely elegant and august, that except for the beautiful princess no one would have ventured to approach it, yet it was open to all, and many a bold youth, who had heard of her fame, preserved his courage all along the avenue, until he reached the stately front door, nor remembered, until it was opened by the awful footman, that he did not know whom to ask for.

"For it seems the people, through the influence, probably, of the maids of honor, had begun to copy the manners of the court, and every pretty girl in the country had begun to fancy herself a princess; and one day when her father was walking through the town, he was so annoyed at hearing every third child called by his daughter's name, that he went home, and shut her up in the castle, and declared she should never again be called by any name, until some one should come who would give her his own. You may be sure there were not wanting youths who would have been happy to present her with such a gift; and it was not long before she numbered among her suitors the princes of all the provinces in the kingdom, each of whom had appeared at the castle gate with full assurance that his name would be one which the princess would be only too happy to accept. But their names were not so powerful at court as at home. The maids of honor, each of whom was a princess in her own country, did not fail, like mischievous things as they were, to take advantage of the confusion arising from there being no name for the princess, to go down when any one was announced, in one of her dresses,—of which you may imagine the number when I tell you she never wore the same twice,—and impose herself on the unsuspecting visitor, as the princess whom he wished to see. What fun, to be sure, all the rest must have had, listening at the half-open door of the next room, to hear the protestations, one after another, of these poor, deluded lovers, each to a different lady! They did not once think what troubles might arise among so many suitors, each of whom considered himself as the chosen one, if they should happen to meet where the princess was the subject of conversation. However, this very circumstance, which occurred, turned out for the benefit of the princess, if not of the suitors; for a young nobleman in their company, hearing them disagree so widely in their descriptions of her beauty, very naturally concluded that each had seen a different one, and that neither, perhaps, had seen the princess herself. So he called the next day to see for himself, and soon found, charming as the young lady was who came down to see him, that she was assuming the air of a higher personage than herself; for one who knows what he seeks is not so easily put off by appearances. So he took leave, and coming next day in disguise, beheld another lady; and so every day, until he had seen them all, and satisfied himself that he had not seen their mistress. With all their grace and beauty there was an air about them as of reflected light, and he fancied he detected now and then a listening kind of look, as if the main life of the house was going on somewhere else. Yet he did not wonder at the passion of the suitors, for each of these maids of honor was so lovely, that the lifetime of almost any man would not have been too much to devote to her. But he looked at them as one looks at the moon when waiting for the daybreak, and was not long in sending a message by the footman, that brought down the princess herself, who entered the room in all her loveliness, leaning upon the arm of her father. A single glance sufficed to tell the youth that she was indeed the princess that his heart had foretold, but also that he never could win her without the consent of the stern old monarch upon whom she leaned. Nor did he feel dismayed, for he also valued that ancestral pride, nor without reason; for in the veins of the poor young nobleman also ran the blood of a royal line, although the sword that hung at his side was all that was left him of its former glory; and the old king might have seen it flashing in his eye with a trace of the old splendor, as he boldly asked the hand of his daughter. But though the father frowned, the daughter smiled, for the glance of the youth had sparkled in her heart, as if it were already the marriage ring upon her finger.

"'Come hither,' said the sire; and the youth followed him to the balcony which overlooked the country about the castle. 'On every side,' said he, 'farther than the eagle's flight can measure in a day, behold my domain. Think'st thou I will permit this inheritance of my fathers to go into the hands of a man of yesterday? Let him win it, then I may know that he can keep it. Go down again, and look up over the castle gate, and see the escutcheon of this house. No heraldic device is that, but the veritable coat of arms which the founder of this house placed there as the seal of his work. Know also the traditionary challenge to whoever aspires to the hand of the daughter of the house. Only as an equal can he win her from her father's hand, who will condescend to meet in arms none but those who can take down and wear that armor.' Then with an inclination of the head that seemed to freeze the air about him, he dismissed the youth, who feared him not, but saw in him only the massive foundations of that stately castle, from the upper window of which the fairest princess in the world waved him a farewell of hope.

"When he was outside the gate he looked up, and there was the coat of arms, not, as one would suppose from the careless glance usually given on entering the door of a palace, an ornamental escutcheon,—though of enormous size, as befitted the proportions of the edifice,—but the veritable arms themselves, which must have come down from a race of giants. Even if he could have worn them, it would have been impossible to take them down, as they were built into the wall of the house, and indeed seemed so essential a part of the structure, that it was, as it were, the face of the whole front, and could not be taken away but with the whole body. No wonder he felt for a moment disheartened, as he stood before the frowning portal; and perhaps he would have turned away in despair, had not his eye caught at that moment the merry faces of the maids of honor peering out, one over the other, at the side windows, and been drawn thus to a golden gleam at the great oriel window above, which was no other than the radiant face and arm of his princess; and although she disappeared the next minute, yet that light seemed for a moment to lift, from within, the whole dark castle, and to fall upon the device on the shield of the escutcheon, which was so effaced by time, that he had not observed it before. With a smile that would have become the stern face of the lord of the castle himself, he gayly turned, and walked down the long avenue, not for years to return, touching now and then the hilt of his sword, as one would pat the neck of his war-horse, which was pawing for him to mount; and well did that sword deserve his trust, for though it was his all, a king's ransom would not have purchased it. It had been the sword of his greatest ancestor, and possessed the charm of giving to the arm of its wearer the strength of every one it overcame.

"But before he left, in return for the information the deluded suitors had so unwittingly given him, he told them of the arms, and the condition upon which the princess was to be won. Did he not fear that in his absence the prize might be carried off by one of these other suitors, so much more powerful in name than himself? Or had he a reason of his own for keeping them from their own dominions?

"Now, each of these suitors was the ruler of one of the provinces of the kingdom, and each had been attracted thither by the fame of the princess's beauty. In the old time the kingdom had belonged to a race of giants, and the provinces were departments, bounded by no territorial limits, and the tenure upon which they were held was the right of the strongest.

"In the mining district, the ancient ruler had been the mightiest smith.

"In the forest he had swung the largest axe.

"And so, through all the provinces of that kingdom, each ruler had been the master of his own craft. But the ancient heroes, thinking the posterity of the strong are the strong, and that no state is safe unless maintained by the same power which won it, had left a challenge, each, on his castle gate, which was open to all who should come in after times; and whoever should accept it might contest with its occupant the possession of the castle and its domains. In former times this challenge had been no empty form; but for many years no one had appeared to accept it, and it now hung at the castle gate unnoticed, as a portcullis, whose chains have rusted with centuries of peace.

"Now, the rulers were absent, with no thought of their provinces, wasting their strength in useless efforts to take down the king's armor, not dreaming that they might be losing their own and fighting among themselves in rivalry for the hand of the fair princess, whom neither of them had ever seen. How many of them flattered themselves that they should succeed in single combat with the old monarch, whom they could not even meet in his grounds without awe, cannot be known, but the coat of arms had many a tug from that day; and we can imagine the feelings of each suitor, as he retreated ignominiously down the long, straight avenue, the subdued laughter of those tantalizing maids of honor behind him, at the windows, stiffening his elbows, and twitching his knees, till by the time he reached the highway, he was breathless, as if he had been fighting the ancient wearer of the armor himself.

"Meantime, where was the youth upon whom the princess had smiled? In the remotest hamlet of the kingdom, disguised as a peasant; in his hands the charmed sword had become an axe, with the fame of whose exploits the woods still ring. Nor was he long in winning the strength of every woodman's arm, and with the last stroke the axe in his hands became a hammer, with whose lusty blows, ere long, every anvil in the neighboring province echoed, till with the last blow the hammer in his hands became a ploughshare; and thus, through each province, beginning at the foot and leaving at the head, until there was not an acre in that vast domain which he did not know better than those who tilled it; no forge or furnace at which his arm had not proved the strongest; no art or craft that did not own him master. Then the sword returned to its sheath, and he said, 'I have served my apprenticeship; now let me take my degrees.'

"Then he boldly presented himself at each castle, and demanded the ancient right of trial.

"At the gate of the first hung a mighty axe, which the giant arm of the ancient lord had placed there, as a defiance to after times, with the inscription, 'To him who can wield it.'

"He took it down as if it were a toy, and sunk it to the helve in the gate post, carving on the handle the words, 'To him who can draw it.' Then he entered the castle, and investing himself with the rights and titles that belonged to him as victor, and leaving the province in the keeping of a suitable deputy, he went on to the next, at whose castle gate hung the ponderous hammer of the royal smith, its former owner, with the inscription, 'To him who can swing it.' This he not only swung around, as if it were a walking stick, but left buried to the head in the gate of massive oak, and with unmoved breath bade the chamberlain, who, with all the retinue of servants, had flown to open it at his thundering summons, to carve upon the handle the words, 'To him who can take it.'

"Then entering, and assuming his rightful authority, and leaving the administration of the province in proper keeping, he went on to the next castle, where at the gate stood a huge plough, with the inscription, 'To him who can hold it.'

"Breaking to the yoke the wild bulls of the old stock,—for there were none of the present race who could move it,—he ploughed a furrow half round the castle, and left it buried to the beam, cutting upon it the words, 'To him who can finish it.'

"He turned loose his team into the forest, and entering the castle, left it, as he had the rest, in the charge of his own deputy; and thus proceeding from castle to castle, and leaving each province as its lord, because its master, he completed the round, and thus became possessed of all that kingdom, save one castle; but that was the king's. 'I have the parts—now for the whole,' he said, laying his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"But before he went forth on his last trial, he gave a year to the ordering and uniting of his separate provinces. 'The body is ready for its head,' he then said, and went forth to the king's castle.

"As he drew near, he observed the suitors still tugging at the armor, the maids of honor still watching them from the windows, though with less mirth, and each with more interest, he thought, in some one whom her eyes followed.

"But above all, in the great oriel, his own fair princess, fairer than ever, held out both arms to him in welcome.

"One glance at the armor, and the inscription on the shield, 'To him who can wear it,'—which he could hardly see, so covered was it with the figures of the suitors,—and a smile to think how the armor was wearing them, and he boldly entered the castle, sending his challenge to the king to meet him in equal arms, according to his promise. 'Where is the armor in which you were to meet me?' said the monarch, on entering, with submissive dignity.

"'To him who carries the kingdom on his shoulders, the castle is a helmet, and the arms a crest,' said he, and demanded the hand of the princess. As he spoke, the sword in his hand became a sceptre, and the king, bowing low, with a reverence in which knelt the proud humility of the dethroned sovereign, said, 'Brave prince, we can only have what we earn. I have no power to say that what you have earned you shall not have. You have won it; Heaven grant you a long life to keep it. Long last the throne whose wood the king's own hand hath hewn!'

"Then he placed the princess's hand in his, and gave him, what he already had, yet what without her were not worth having, the kingdom, for her dowry.

"At the marriage which took place, the maids of honor were affianced each to her favored suitor, who loved her no less than if she had been the princess for whom he had mistaken her; and each was better pleased to be the princess of a province than to play at being princess of a kingdom. For to each was given, with the consent of the bridegroom, a province in the dowry of the princess, with a recommendation by him to each restored ruler, who was to hold it in trust to observe the words inscribed upon his castle gate, and to stay at home hereafter and attend to his own department.

"But before the marriage was completed, the father of the bride drew the prince aside, and reminded him that he had sworn his daughter should have no name until one should come who should give her his own.

"'Names are for commoners,' he said; 'kings have none. Know then that the kingdom which I have again made good from the foot, has come down to me from the head, and that the princess's ancestry and mine go back until they meet in the same name. But let her whose name is profaned by all, be ever nameless for me; and lest her maidens again compromise her by assuming it, let them keep it for a surname, and I will couple it with a distinction.'

"Then he named each of them from the name of her province, and their mistress is never spoken of by them but under the title of their queen."

"Now, Ella," said Fanny.

"The beginning of Anna's story will do for mine with the change of a word. There was once a brother, the most critical who had ever been seen—"

"It must have been mine," interrupted Kate.

"Did you ever venture to tell him a story? If you have, you may know how much spirit I must feel at the idea of repeating mine. But as my brother has so large a part in it, I may as well tell you something about him."

"O," said Fanny, "if we get on the subject of brothers, we shall never come to your story."

"But as without mine we never should have come to it at all, as you will see, he is a part which cannot be left out," said Ella.

"My brother had the gravest way of telling the strangest adventures, as if they had really happened, so that although I might have been taken in by him a thousand times, I invariably yielded the most implicit trust to every new story; while I had such a way of telling real occurrences that no one would believe they were not inventions. If he could tell my stories, I believe they would be better than his; for, telling them in his plausible way, he would need to leave nothing out, as I do, for fear of being laughed at; and they would have the advantage over his, of not only appearing true, but really being so, which is all the praise I can claim for them now. Yet he would insist that he never told any thing but what he had actually seen.

"'Facts for men, fancies for girls,' he would say; for he had a way of setting up one thing against another, as if nothing could stand alone. Thus he would say the oddest things with the gravest face, and would set me crying with a look like a harlequin.

"But although he laughed at my 'fancies,' I could not but notice he was always getting me to tell them, yet as if for some end of his own which I never could discover; for often when he had set me going in this way, I could feel myself pushed forth from him, as if I were the antenna of some insect with which he was exploring unknown regions, and making in his own wise head conclusions with which I had nothing to do.

"Then he was always fond of having me with him, and had always a new name for me, which I liked because he gave it to me, although I could never see its significance. Now I was his witch-hazel, though I never knew what springs I found for him. Now I was his ger-falcon, but could never see what game he loosed me at, although, certainly, no falcon was ever kept more closely hooded.

"Very different was the confidence I had in him; for whatever was in my mind, I was sure to go to him, and he was always ready to satisfy me. There was nothing so strange that I wished to see, but he could at once tell me, with the most explicit directions, where I could find it; but when I returned, as I almost invariably did, without success, the only explanation he would give was, that I had not found the place. Many a fool's errand of this kind he sent me upon, from which I came back as wise as I went. But one thing he told me which turned out exactly as he said, and it may prove so with others which are a puzzle to me to this day.

"One day, when I had been reading about the fairies until I had the greatest desire in the world to see them, I went to my oracle, whom I found sitting beside the stream above the mill, for our father was a miller, and this had been our favorite spot from my earliest recollection. He was looking at the water, apparently thinking of something else; but when he saw me coming, he appeared absorbed in a book, which I observed was upside down.

"'Tell me really and truly,' said I, 'do you think such creatures as fairies actually exist?'

"'Certainly,' he answered, 'for I have seen them myself.' I looked at him in amazement, but his serious face assured me he was not joking; and I begged him to tell me where he had seen them, and why, if they really existed, every thing was not known about them. 'There is also a nation in the heart of Africa,' said he, 'supposed to be somewhere about the source of the Nile; but no one has ever discovered them, or, if he has, has not returned, and we have no information about them.'

"'If I lived on the Nile,' I replied, 'I should never rest until I had discovered them.'

"'But,' said he, 'as we live on the mill stream, perhaps that will do as well for us. And, now I think of it, it is the very thing, as I learned from a conversation which I overheard when among the fairies—'

"'But tell me first,' said I, 'how you came to be there.'

"'O,' said he, 'I came upon them once by accident, which is a rare piece of good fortune. I had often before come upon them suddenly in the same way, but they were off before I could fairly see them, or lay like a brood of partridges, taking the color of every thing about them, so that I might look for them an hour, I could never find them. It is no use to wait, for they can wait longer than you can. The only way is to go off and come back again when the affair is blown over, and take them again unawares, when they will again, perhaps, spring up under your very feet, and be off before you know they are there. But by repeated attempts, at sufficient intervals, coming nearer each time, and looking with a certain attentive indifference, you may succeed in seeing them. But it is useless to chase them whither they appear to have flown, unless you have a dog perfectly trained; for Diana's hounds, I believe, are the only ones who have ever been able to follow them up. But as they frequent the same spot, if you leave it, they will be sure to come back, only you must mark the trees as you go away, or you will not find the place again; for otherwise you might be close by and never know it. I did not neglect this precaution when I saw them; but though I marked the trees, I forgot the mark, and have never been able to recall it. Perhaps you may have better fortune, for there is another way which I learned, as I said, from the conversation I overheard when there. But if I tell you, it must be on one condition—that you will break the twigs, or otherwise mark the way as you go along, so that I can follow.'

"On my giving the promise demanded, 'It seems,' said he, 'the fairies, though living so far apart from men, are still dependent upon them for their bread, and must come down now and then to the mill for their grist, which John takes good care to leave out for them, or they would turn off the water from above, he says. When they are on their way back, they are always in good humor if they have found their grist, and are willing to take up a passenger in their boat. But it must be a girl, and therefore I have never been able to go up in that way myself. They say that women can find the way to their camp, but can never find the way back; but if men should once get in, they would think of nothing but getting back to report it, and it would be overrun with visitors, who would bring nothing with them, and carry every thing away. For it is a custom of their hospitality to present every guest with a gift; to the women an ornament of their beauty with which they would never part, but to the men they could give nothing which they would not carry home to convert into money. So that it is doubtful which of us has the advantage; you who can get in, but can make nothing of it, or I, who could turn it to account, but cannot get in.'

"'O, I, to be sure!' said I; 'for the great thing after all is to get in. But how am I to secure a passage in their boat?'

"He told me I must be asleep on the bank of the stream at the time the fairies' boat would be going up, and they would take me in when they saw me. He had tried to find out from John when they were in the habit of coming for their grist; but John could not tell, or would not, as he did not care to watch their comings or goings, he said. So long as they allowed him sufficient head of water to keep the mill going, it was none of his business, and they were not people that he cared to meddle with. But he supposed they came, when they did come, at night, or sometimes, perhaps, when he was taking his nooning.

"After that I went every day to the bank of the stream, and did my best to compose myself to sleep; but in vain: the more I tried to sleep, the more I would be awake, in spite of the counsel of my brother, who gave me no peace on the subject of sleep, and was continually telling me of Napoleon, who had the power of going to sleep whenever he chose. At last, one day when I had fairly given up in despair, and had forgotten all about the fairies, and every thing else but the rippling of the stream,—for it happened to be the hour of noon, and the mill wheel was still, which usually drowned the voice of the brook,—I must have been falling into a sound sleep, when the rippling changed into the silver laughter of infant voices, and then a murmuring and consulting, breaking into faint acclamations, as of a busy throng, babbling, in an under tone, of some mysterious plot against some one they were fearful of waking. And then I felt myself borne away on little undulating arms, too far gone in sleep to resist, and then dancing and flickering on tiny waves, and lulled by their liquid echoes, till I lost myself in a deep sleep, which seemed to be pillowed on a sense of being carried on and on into a realm of silence, and then being lifted and carried, as on a living bier, with new senses waking clearer and clearer, as if naked in the delicate air of a new life, and at last waking and finding myself alone in an open space of forest, shadowed by trees of an unknown grace, and lighted by magic vistas where the distance found its last repose on the summits of sun-lit mountains.

"A perpetual afternoon shaded that sward of loveliest green, alive with fairest flowers, with not a breath of air stirring the heavy leaves; and if the slender stems of the undergrowth waved ever so lightly, it was with an almost imperceptible motion of their own. Yet was there not at that moment the same slight movement in every shrub and leaf? and where were those who had brought me hither? Was it a whispering I heard behind me? There was no one there, but, gradually, as in the silence of the night the air is oppressed by the sense of some one being in the room, I became aware of being surrounded by invisible beings, who were holding their breaths with a general hush, that I might not know they were there. In a moment every thing lighted up with the thought that I was within the charmed circle of the fairies, and a mysterious influence from something close at hand brought back the most distant recollection of my childhood, as the magic word that would compel the fairies to appear. A faint perfume drew my eyes downward, and at my feet was the little violet, my first and earliest love. I stooped to pick it, but an 'Ah!' of horror stayed my hand, which already held the stem. 'No,' I said, shutting my eyes as if to enclose the dear recollection of my childhood safe from harm, 'thy life is more to me than to know all.' When I opened my eyes the violet was gone, and in my hand I held a wand, as if a line from the purple edge of a rainbow.

"I waved it around my head, and every thing stood clear and perfect in a light that seemed to crystallize with distinctness the texture of every flower and leaf. I waved it again, and it was as if a page of Hebrew had become the most domestic English.

"Was not this enough?

"But I waved it a third time, and Heavens! every tree, and shrub, and flower had disappeared, and in the place of each was a human figure, but one transfigured into a form of inconceivable majesty, grace, or loveliness. But each stood fixed as by its root to its place, and I thought, 'Could I only say the word that would set them free!' A voice whispered in my ear, 'The free only can set free.' Then I felt for the first time how heavy I was in the presence of those graceful creatures, and my weight seemed to sink down into a root that fastened my feet to the ground.

"Was there still another set of fairies, invisible to the eye? I felt myself lifted by unseen arms, and could feel harmonious breaths around me like an atmosphere which I was inhaling through every pore, and which was swelling every fibre with a thrill of lightness, until I only touched the ground like a bird ready to fly. I raised the wand, and a strain from an unseen band lifted on its wings the whole assembly surrounding the green, who nodded, and waved, and swayed with the opening movement as if catching the time of a tune to which they were to dance; the flute and the violin catching, like a flame, from one to the other, the tortuous wreathing of the bass-viol, with labored ease possessing their limbs, and the bugle and the trumpet, with a gush of melody in which all the rest joined, leaving their graceful heads floating in the loveliest confusion of harmony. Then a pause fell like a shadow, pointing across the greensward; and when it ended, faint as figures in a deep valley, burst forth a chorus of tiny voices, and there were the fairies themselves, in groups on groups, and wreath involved in wreath, dancing to their own song, countless as the fireflies in a meadow on a summer evening.

"'If I were only small enough to dance with them!' said I, listening so intently that I felt myself contracting into the compass of their song, and the wand diminishing in my hand, till there we were, myself and the loveliest little fairy queen dancing together through the mazes of the tiny troop, bewildered by the grace of the faces that passed us like dreams of beauty, and the soft crush of bewitching dresses that wafted, as they swept by us, such dizzy perfumes as only the bee or the butterfly could imagine. The songs to which we danced, every group singing a different one, and yet all in harmony, were without words; but our feet, pattering, innumerable as the drops of a silver rain, or the softest piano and flute accompaniment, echoed with their meaning, and every step was the understanding of emotions, for which language had no name. For we were so slight and pure that there was no interval between the music and the meaning, but our forms, which were only the harmony and enjoyment of both, sparkling into life each moment our footsteps touched the ground.

"'The dance for thought, the waltz for love,' said my fairy queen, looking at me with velvet eyes, and wreathing her arms around my waist. Then we floated off on the violin accompaniment, that seemed to fly from under our feet at every step, gliding through the sinuous mazes of a movement interweaving and unfolding into newer and newer combinations, till we swam in a delirium of uncomprehended harmony, buoyed up so lightly, as if on half-open wings, that our feet only occasionally touched the ground to remind us of the earth.

"'O, let us fly!' I exclaimed.

"'The fairies belong to the earth, like yourselves,' she answered; 'but would you learn the dance?'

"'O, yes; and I will love you and live with you forever!'

"'Till when?'

"'Till I have learned it, and can take it home with me.'

"'Dear child,' said she, 'the fairies have no homes but yours, and we can only come down to them on your feet. Without you we are only eyes without a smile. But if we cannot come down to you of ourselves, how happy are we when one comes to us who can carry us back with her! How did you come hither?'

"'I sailed up on the stream.'

"'Then take me down with you,' she said, sinking upon my face with a kiss, into which she dissolved like a mist, and I closed my eyes to clasp her to my heart forever.

"When I opened them, the stream was rippling at my feet, and my brother was raising his face from mine with a smile that left me in doubt if I was not still in Fairyland. 'Now tell me, Violet Eyes,' said he, 'all about the fairies.'

"'How do you know I have been there?' I asked.

"'Have you never heard that whoever looks first into the eyes of one who has been there, catches a glimpse of Fairyland? But tell me quick, before you forget. You know you promised to break the twigs as you went, to mark the place for me.'

"'O, I forgot all about it!' said I.

"'Never mind,' said he; 'but tell me what you remember.'

"So I told him all I could, and much more than I have told you now, for he had such a comical look on his face when I was describing the best part of it all,—after betraying me, too, as he had, into telling it, with the greatest appearance of interest,—that I resolved I never would tell it again; so you must blame him, and not me, if I have left the best part out."

"O, we all know the best part of a story is always left out!" said Kate, "particularly by those who have taken the most pains to put every thing in. But there goes the school bell. I wonder if the fairies ever come down so far into the world as to visit the school room. Fancy Ella dancing with her fairy queen, with an 'Algebra' under one arm, and an 'Elements of Criticism' under the other."

"There is nothing so heavy that the fairies cannot make it dance," said Ella. "The trouble is to get their assistance. And what a capital story it would make,—the fairies coming at night and setting our books to waltzing on the school room floor! There is no end to the funny contrasts it suggests."

"The best stories always come when it is too late to tell them," said Anna.

THE END