48 The Fairy Godmothers.

do you think that felf-fatisfied, but ftill uncheerful
looking face tells of happinefs?

No! fhe too, like Aurora, was unoccupied, and
forecafting into futurity for the “ good time
coming,” which fo many fpend their lives in
craving after and expecting, but which the proud,
the felfith and the idle never reach to.

The Fairies turned from her forrowful and

angry.

In the outfkirts of a foreft, juft where its intri-
cacy had broken away into picturefque openings,
leaving vifible fome ftrange old trees with knotted
trunks and myfterioufly twifted branches, fat a
young girl fketching. She was intently engaged,
but as her eyes were ever and anon raifed from
her paper to the opening glade, and one of the
old trees, the Fairies had no difficulty in recognizing
their protégée, Hermione. The laughing face of
childhood had become fobered and refined by
fentiment and ftrength, but contentment and even
enjoyment beamed in her eyes as fhe thoughtfully
and earneftly purfued her beautiful art. The little
beings who hovered around her in that {weet {pot,
almoft forgot they were not in Fairy land; the air
was fo full of fweet odours from ferns and mofles,
and the many other delicious fcénts you find fo
conftantly in woods,

Befides which, it amufed the good fouls to
watch Hermione’s fkilful hand tracing the fcene
before her; and they felt an admiring delight