late, but welcome; her face bright with flushes of vivid, but
uncertain rose,--her deep gray eyes brimming with motherhood, a
sister's fondness, and the ardor of a child. The tenderest
garden-spider-webs made her a robe, full of little common blue-eyed
flowers, and in her gold-brown hair rested a light circle of such
blooms as beguile the winter days of the poor and the desolate, and
put forth their sweetest buds by the garret window, or the bedside
of a sick man.

Mrs. Lita nearly dropped the baby, in her great relief of mind; but
Cordis caught it, and looked at its brilliant face with tears.

"Ah, Head of the Fairies, help me!" murmured Queen Lura, extending
her arms toward Cordis; for she had kept one eye open wide enough to
see what would happen while she fainted away.

"All I can, I will," said the kindly fairy, speaking in the same key
that a lark sings in. So she sat down upon a white velvet mushroom
and fell to thinking, while Maya, the Princess, looked at her from
the rose where she lay, and the Queen, having pushed her down robe
safely out of the way, leaned her head on her hand, and very
properly cried as much as six tears.

Soon, like a sunbeam, Cordis looked up. "I can give the Princess a
counter-charm, Queen Lura," said she,--"but it is not sure. Look you!
she will have a lonely life,--for the Spark burns, as well as shines,
and the only way to mend that matter is to give the fire better fuel
than herself. For some long years yet, she must keep herself in
peace and the shade; but when she is a woman, and the Spark can no
more be hidden,--since to be a woman is to have power and pain,--