pring had gone, and her sister fairies flew away to
fairy-land, she still smiled, though a little sadly, and bade them
farewell without a shade of discontent in her brave, gentle voice.

"Now, I must find some work," she said to herself, when her wistful eyes
could no longer discern the flutter of their wings in the azure sky.

And she soon found plenty to do.

Now it was binding up the wound of some stricken bird, or raising some
crushed flower, and sprinkling its drooping leaves with cooling dew, and
now it was closing the eyelids of a tired child who had thrown himself
down to rest beneath the forest shade, and singing softly in his ear a
fairy lullaby, till he fell asleep. Sometimes she would perch herself on
the shoulder of some sleeping wayfarer by the roadside, and whisper in
his ear sweet and tender words that made him dream of his home, and of
the mother sleeping so peacefully in the churchyard far away, till he
started from his sleep and went on his way with a touched and softened
heart. Every day Fairy Violet found some kindly deed to do, and every
day Mother Nature, looking lovingly on her child, saw the time was
drawing nearer when she should receive her reward.

One day as she was wandering through one of the by-streets of a crowded
city, she was attracted by a plaintive voice that proceeded from one of
the low-roofed, badly built houses.

"Put the geranium where I can see it, mother," the voice was saying, "I
love to lie back and watch it."

A woman came forward at these words and altered the position of the
plant, which Fairy Violet had already noticed as being rather faded, and
in want of her skill to brighten the colours.

"It is very washy-like," she said regretfully, "I doubt this stuffy air
is killing it."

"Will it live as long as I shall?" asked the plaintive voice.

There was no answer, but Violet saw that the mother's hands shook as
they busied themselves with the flower.

"I hope it will," the voice continued, with a sort of wistful eagerness,
"for it is such a pleasure to me to watch it. It seems to comfort me,
when the pain is very bad, and I lie awake through the long weary night,
to look at it and wonder what the little garden is looking like in the
old home you have told me of so often, mother, and whether the moon is
shining as sweetly there as over our poor house here. I sometimes
wonder, too, whether the flowers there are so very much more beautiful
than my poor sickly gerani