I can't argue, I never could--I
can't hear any more, I am quite satisfied that I am right; you can't
argue away the pleasure of being a beauty in a ball-room. Ask any of
them themselves."

"Well," said Ianthe, "we need pursue the subject no further. I am
resolved. My baby is to be beautiful, beautiful as the dawn of the
morning; they shall call her Aurora!"

"I shall not follow your example," observed Euphrosyne, "I don't at
all like that notion of the necessity of _envy_ to make the beauty's
joy complete. Besides, I'm not at all sure beauty is not much more
charming in idea than in possession. Nobody spend their lives in
entering a ball-room, and one gets sadly tired of one's own face. I'm
sure _I_ do, beautiful as it is;" and as she spoke the Fairy stooped
over a clear tide pool which mirrored her lovely countenance; "and yet
look what a nose I have! It is absolutely exquisite! And this hair!"
and she held up her long silken curling tresses and looked at them
reflected in the water as she spoke. A musical laugh rang through the
fairy group. Euphrosyne resumed her seat. "There isn't a mortal damsel
in the world who would not go into raptures to resemble me," pursued
she, "and yet--but, oh dear, I am getting quite prosy, and it is quite
useless, for Ianthe has decided. I, on the contrary, am thinking of
something far less romantic and interesting, but I suspect far more
necessary to the happiness of mortals than beauty--I mean RICHES."

"Men are horribly fond of them, certainly," observed the Fairy from
behind, whose name was Ambrosia. "I can't endure men on that very
account. Look at the grubby wretched lives they lead in
counting-houses and banks, and dreadful dingy holes and corners of
great towns, where we wouldn't set the soles of our feet, and this for
forty or fifty years, perhaps, in order that in the fifty-first, or
perhaps later still, they may turn into butterflies for the little bit
of life that is left to them. And such butterflies, too! not knowing
what to do with their gay coats and fine wings when they get them at
last."

"I think you are putting an extreme case," observed Euphrosyne.
"Though the grubs themselves may not thoroughly enjoy the riches they
have so laboriously acquired, their children or grandchildren may, and
live at ease and enjoy them. I should not think of bestowing great
riches on uneducated paupers. But it is another matter to give them to
people whom education has refined, and wh