50 The Fairy Godmothers.

her gift, that, altogether, her Fairy heart grew quite
foft. ‘ You may do as you like about obferving
_ Hermione further,” cried fhe. ‘ But, for my part,

I am now fatisfied. She is enjoying life to the ut-
termoft ; all its beauties of fight and found ; its
outward lovelinefs; its inward myfteries. She
will never marry but from love, and one whofe
heart can fympathife with hers. Ah, Ianthe, what
more has life to give? You will fay, the is not
beautiful; perhaps not for a marble ftatue; but
the grace of poetical feeling is in her every look
and action. Ah, fhe will walk by the fide of man-
hood, turning even the hard realities of life into
beauty by that living well-fpring of fweet thoughts
and fancies that I fee beaming. from her eyes.
Look at her now, Ianthe, and confefs that furely
that countenance breathes more beauty than chi-
felled features can give.” And certainly, whether
fome mefmeric influence from her enthufiaftic Fairy
Godmother was working on Hermione’s brain, or
whether her own quotation upon the doomed tree.
had ftirred up other poetical recollections, I know
not; but as fhe was retracing her fteps homewards,
fhe repeated to herfelf foftly but with much pathos,
Coleridge’s lines : *

“* O lady, we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live :

Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her fhroud !
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,

 

* Coleridge’s * Dejeétion : an Ode.”