"Come and look," answered Alfred, and he led her to a great mirror,
where she for the first time saw the violet flame. "How beautiful it
is!" she exclaimed.

"O, but it is growing dim; you must not look at it," said
Alfred. "Come and let us run up and down the garden, between the great
hedges."

But Rosamond, having once seen the violet flame, could not be
satisfied until she had been to the castle to take another look, and
found so much pleasure in gazing at herself in the great mirror, that
she went every day to pay herself a stolen visit, while Alfred was at
school. But one day he found her there, and said, "I see how it is
that the pretty flame has gone; you have been admiring it too much by
yourself. I shall not love you now."

Then Rosamond felt very sorry, and wondered how she could win back
Alfred's love. At length she took all her money, with which she had
intended to buy her old nurse a warm cloak for the winter, and bought
a golden _feroniere_ with a purple stone in it, to wear around
her head in the place of the vanished flame. Then she walked into the
picture gallery with a proud step. "O Rosamond!" exclaimed her cousin,
"can you believe that bit of purple glass can replace the dancing
flame that shone with, such a lovely violet light over your golden
hair? Pray take it off, for it seems mere tinsel to me."

But neither he nor Rosamond could unclasp the _feronere;_ and she
had to go back to the jeweller, of whom she bought it, to ask him to
file it off, which he tried in vain to do; and at last he said, "The
pedler who sold it to me must be right. He said that, once clasped, it