,--deep, solemn, palpable, and sinking into
the heart with a leaden and death-like weight. Even the English fairy
spoke not; she held her breath, and gazing on the tomb, she saw, in rude
vast characters,--

THE TEUTON.

"_We_ are all that remain of his religion!" said the prince, as they
turned from the dread temple.

CHAPTER XIV. THE FAIRY'S CAVE, AND THE FAIRY'S WISH.

IT was evening; and the fairies were dancing beneath the twilight star.

"And why art thou sad, my violet?" said the prince; "for thine eyes seek
the ground!"

"Now that I have found thee," answered the queen, "and now that I feel
what happy love is to a fairy, I sigh over that love which I have lately
witnessed among mortals, but the bud of whose happiness already conceals
the worm. For well didst thou say, my prince, that we are linked with a
mysterious affinity to mankind, and whatever is pure and gentle amongst
them speaks at once to our sympathy, and commands our vigils."

"And most of all," said the German fairy, "are they who love under our
watch; for love is the golden chain that binds all in the universe: love
lights up alike the star and the glow-worm; and wherever there is
love in men's lot, lies the secret affinity with men, and with things
divine."

"But with the human race," said Nymphalin, "there is no love that
outlasts the hour, for either death ends, or custom alters. When the
blossom comes to fruit, it is plucked and seen no more; and therefore,
when I behold true love sentenced to an early grave, I comfort myself
that I shall not at least behold the beauty dimmed, and the softness of
the heart hardened into stone. Yet, my prince, while still the pulse
can beat, and the warm blood flow, in that beautiful form which I have
watched over of late, let me not desert her; still let my influence keep
the sky fair, and the breezes pure; still let me drive the vapour from
the moon, and the clouds from the faces of the stars; still let me fill
her dreams with tender and brilliant images, and glass in the mirror
of sleep the happiest visions of fairy-land; still let me pour over her
eyes that magic, which suffers them to see no fault in one in whom she
has garnered up her soul! And as death comes slowly on, still let me
rob the spectre of its terror, and the grave of its sting; so that, all
gently and unconscious to herself, life may glide into the Great Ocean
where the shadows lie, and the spirit without guile may be severed f