Places a light that gleams and glows.

It is a glowworm from the lea,
And lighting up the rose's heart,
A fairy grot it seems to be,
Where dream-thoughts live and ne'er depart.

And now the Elf once more is gone
Into the woodlands wild,
Leaving his blessing thus to shine
Upon the sleeping child."

PRINCESS FINOLA AND THE DWARF[H]

BY EDMUND LEAMY

A long, long time ago there lived in a little hut in the midst of a
bare, brown, lonely moor an old woman and a young girl. The old woman
was withered, sour-tempered, and dumb. The young girl was as sweet and
as fresh as an opening rosebud, and her voice was as musical as the
whisper of a stream in the woods in the hot days of summer. The little
hut, made of branches woven closely together, was shaped like a
bee-hive. In the center of the hut a fire burned night and day from
year's end to year's end, though it was never touched or tended by human
hand. In the cold days and nights of winter it gave out light and heat
that made the hut cozy and warm, but in the summer nights and days it
gave out light only. With their heads to the wall of the hut and their
feet toward the fire were two sleeping-couches--one of plain woodwork,
in which slept the old woman; the other was Finola's. It was of bog-oak,
polished as a looking-glass, and on it were carved flowers and birds of
all kinds that gleamed and shone in the light of the fire. This couch
was fit for a Princess, and a Princess Finola was, though she did not
know it herself.

Outside the hut the bare, brown, lonely moor stretched for miles on
every side, but toward the east it was bounded by a range of mountains
that looked to Finola blue in the daytime, but which put on a hundred
changing colors as the sun went down. Nowhere was a house to be seen,
nor a tree, nor a flower, nor sign of any living thing. From morning
till night, nor hum of bee, nor song of bird, nor voice of man, nor any
sound fell on Finola's ear. When the storm was in the air the great
waves thundered on the shore beyond the mountains, and the wind shouted
in the glens; but when it sped across the moor it lost its voice, and
passed as silently as the dead. At first the silence frightened Finola,
but she got used to it after a time, and often broke it by talking to
herself and singing.

The only other person beside the old woman Finola ever saw was a dumb
Dwarf who, mounted on a broken-down horse, came