f with a start. "I'll give it a drop
more," and she bustled off to get some, while her daughter lay back and
watched the flower with a quiet, restful smile on her patient lips.

"There is work for me to do here," said Violet to herself, feeling quite
happy as she glided from blossom to blossom, touching and re-touching
with her delicate brush. So she stayed, and day by day the flower grew
more radiantly beautiful beneath her loving hands, sweetest fragrance
filled the room, and softest murmuring of fairy music floated on the
air, which, though the dull senses of mother and daughter failed to
interpret rightly, yet stole into their hearts and gave them comfort.
Sometimes a vision would come before her of the radiant fairy-land from
which she was banished, or of her beautiful forest-home where fragrant
flowers had wrapt her in their dewy leaves, where birds had sung to her
from the leafy bower above her head, and the bright sun had shone upon
her with genial warmth. But she would quickly banish such thoughts, and
gliding round the room would touch every dull corner with her fairy wand
till it shone and brightened with a magic charm, would cast a spell upon
the smouldering fire, so that it burned and crackled cheerily, would lay
her cool hand upon the sick girl's throbbing brow till the pain abated,
and would cast a fairy haze before her languid eyes, so that they saw
beautiful visions in the changeful sky.

So day by day passed by, till one morning, bending over a glass that
stood beneath the flower she was painting, Fairy Violet saw her own
reflection in the clear water. But she saw something more! A pair of
wings of the most delicate gossamer, tipped with silver and sparkling
with a marvellous radiance, had sprung from her shoulders and rose
almost on a level with her tiny head! Fairy Violet had won her wings at
last, and the golden gates of Fairy-land, where the woods and forests
were always green, and the valleys ever radiant with beautiful flowers,
were open to her once more.

Wild with joy, she darted out of the window, and was already far above
the tops of the smoky chimneys, when she remembered the patient
suffering girl whose life was slowly wasting away in the close confined
atmosphere of her miserable home. Then her wings drooped and her bright
face clouded over.

"I must not leave my work unfinished," she said, and with a wistful
glance at the white fleecy clouds that seemed to beckon lovingly to her,
she