The Mother's present. A holiday gift for the young. Original and selected

Front matter

UNIVERSITY OF

NORTH CAROLINA

ENDOWED BY THE

Contents

Page

MY DARLING BOY 9

THE STAR OVER THE BROOK 26

Chapter The First, How Lisette Lived In The Valley Of Floraine

Were the Guide-books wrong when they said that in all the country round there was not a spot so pretty as Floraine? or of all the travellers that journeyed thither to verify its fame, was every one bewitched ? One of these two things must have been the case ; for no one that ever returned was able to say one word in praise of the village or its valley.

The Guide-books certainly were right;

they gave even a classified catalogue of the beauties of the neighborhood ; but then the chief beauty was omitted, — there was no mention of Lisette, and nobody went to Floraine without seeing Lisette ; and with Lisette to look at, who could have time to waste over the valley ? And so the travellers came back, and could not tell whether Floraine was a desert or a garden, though they were quite sure it must be a paradise, or else it could not hold a Lisette.

They call her Lisette, but the very old men of the village positively declared that her proper baptismal name had been Elizabeth. Not that it at all required an old man to remember when Lisette had been baptised ; only no one but a very old man would have thought of remembering anything that could change the merry and kind Lisette into a prim and stately Elizabeth.

Well, but Floraine — this paradise. Yes, the travellers thought right, — a paradise it was. The very philosophers called it a kingdom of flowers, although they knew no more of flowers than that one might be gamosepalous, another polypetalous ; but a kingdom of flowers it must be, for its name was derived from Latin Avords to that effect, and had it been another Zahara, the classical authority would have clothed it, in their eyes, with everlasting verdure. The ignorant villagers shewed their imperfect education (men were less enlightened in those days) by calling it a queendom. Flowers filled the valley, of every hue and odor ; scattered by the mountain side, crowding round the brook, and Lisette was their queen, the fairest of them all. And well did the queen love her subjects, and fondly did her light heart beat when she surveyed her beauteous empire. Seldom was she happier than when roaming among flowers. Pretty Lisette ! Never was she prettier than with flowers in her hair, her nut-brown hair, that Nature — that best of all hair-dressers, careless as she is — had curled so prettily, and tossed so negligently behind her neck and over her white shoulders. Lisette's eyes, what color were they? Never any youth tried to discover — and many did try — that had not his heart to pay as a penalty for his curiosity. Nobody ever knew exactly the color of Lisette's eyes. They were not black — people thought they were dark — but they were so sparkling and full of meaning that they invariably set people thinking of something else when they intended to satisfy themselves as to color. Nobody at all classical could look at her lips without feeling the force of the assertion that from such lips the shape of Cupid's bow was modelled ; and then what arrows did she shoot from them ! Every word went to the hearer's heart. And her face, — nobody that had ever heard of Lavater could feel that she was otherwise than as good as she was pretty; but the villagers, who knew nothing of Cupid or Lavater, contented themselves with believing that she was a sort of wonder upon earth, and that, as all her thoughts and actions were as beautiful as herself, they ought to be proud of her, and love her ; and so all the inhabitants of Floraine were very, very proud of Lisette, and all, especially the young men,loved her heartily.

Chapter The Second. How Lisette Sa.t Beside The Brook, And What Befell Her There

Now there was a little brook that danced, and bubbled, and sparkled through the valley of Floraine ; and Lisette loved the brook because it loved her flowers, and watered them, and would sprinkle them with little diamonds to punish them if they came too near its edge. And Lisette used to sit beside the brook, and watch its sporting, and listen to its babble ; and then the birds would sing around her, and she would wonder what the brook and the birds were •talking about together.

Now, one day, as she sat thus listening, and the birds were silent because a cloud was coming over the sun, she thought the brook addressed its talk to her ; and she smiled to think herself so silly, and her smile was like the sunbeam, only the beam was about to be blotted by a dark cloud ; but so had Lisette's smiles never been, and there seemed no reason why they should be now. Yet, though she laughed at herself, she listened to the brook, and it seemed to say to her, " Lisette ! Lisette ! follow me, Lisette! Lisette! Lisette! follow me! "

Lisette listened so long that she forgot it was silly to do so, and laughed then at the brook instead of at herself ; and while it still called to her, " Lisette ! Lisette! " she still laughed at it, and let it dance away, and did not follow.

Presently there came a little angry breeze that the cloud brought with it, or that the brook called in as an ally, and shook Lisette's white dress, and a rose fell out of her bosom into the brook ; then the brook danced on, laughing in its turn, and bearing the rose onward in its course.

Now, had it been simply a rose, Lisette would have let the tiresome brook dance away with it, rather than follow and give up her point ; but then that rose Silvan had given to her, and she had worn it in her bosom, and she would wish Silvan, when she passed his cottage that evening to see where she had kept it, and —

"Lisette! Lisette! now you follow me!" seemed the brook to say as, half angry, half laughing, the mischievous breeze still fluttering over her dress and her brown hair, she hurried to recover Silvan's rose.

Chapter The Third. How Lisette Followed In Pursuit Of Silvan's Rose

The brook seemed to laugh so heartily, that Lisette began to scold ; and then the brook seemed sorry for what it had done, and its waters would stop with the rose behind a stone ; but when Lisette put out her hand to regain the flower, away it would dance, and the brook laughed more noisily than ever. Thus with her loose dress and hair still floating on the breeze, the rose always within her reach, but always contriving to elude her grasp, Lisette followed until Floraine was left behind her. The country now around seemed desert, but Lisette saw that there was, at any rate, one flower in it, the only one she thought of, and that still danced on before.

" Lisette ! Lisette ! you follow me now, Lisette ! " laughed the brook, and it laughed soon more loudly than ever, for it wandered among rocks.

Lisette was tired, and the dark cloud was spreading more widely over the blue sky, and the mischievous breeze was now swelling into a storm wind ; but how could Lisette turn back, when each step, perhaps., would put Silvan' s rose in her possession ? And so she was enticed onwards still.

Soon the brook passed within a narrow cleft of rock, where there was no room for footpath by its side. But then the stream was here so very smooth, and the rose floated along so slowly, and the water was so shallow, that Lisette felt certain she should now succeed at last, if she would only wet her feet. She did not hesitate to enter the narrow cleft, and was within an inch of accomplishing her hopes, when the breeze, which had now grown into a violent hurricane, forced itself into the pass, and swept the flower onward in its course.

Lisette gave up her endeavors in despair, and turned to go back, but the wind rushed with such violence into the narrow cleft, that she had not strength to face it ; then Lisette was obliged to hasten on through the shallow stream until she should come to the other side of the pass, and be sheltered from the fury of the storm.

Suddenly she stood once more on open ground, and it seemed as though the dark cloud had melted from the sun, which shone around her with a splendor she had never seen before ; a tender zephyr only sighed through the fissure in the rock , the brook stole noiselessly along ; and she stood in a valley more beautiful by far even than her own Floraine.

Chapter The Fourth, How Lisette Gained Something By Following The Brook

Lisette was so astonished, that, for the moment, she even forgot her rose. Every body had told her there was no other such valley as Floraine, and she had fully believed it ; but here, dearly as she loved her own valley, she was obliged to confess the flowers were fairer, the air more perfumed by their sweet odors, and the charmed eye more dazzled by their beauty. The emerald turf even was softer ; the trees, so graceful in their outline and in their grouping, were such as she had never seen before. Fruits, whose names she had never learned, and more delicious to the eye than nectarines or peaches, hung on the green boughs that bent beneath their weight. Birds sang such heavenly melodies, as before had existed in her own bright fancy only ; and as they flew from branch to branch, their glorious plumage glittered in the sun ; and the brook seemed now like glass, — at one time swelling into tiny lakes, and rising in tall fountain columns until it broke into a thousand rainbows, — then winding through the enamelled turf, falling in cascades from one terrace to another.

While Lisette was gazing she heard some one cough, and looking round discovered a little old woman at her elbow. She knew then for certain that she was upon fairy ground, and that a fairy Avas before her, for she was quite aware of the peculiar sympathy which fairies are acknowledged to possess.

Lisette had never done any thing wrong, and so, her conscience being clear, felt perfectly at ease with the old lady. She could not, however, help expressing her admiration of the garden, and the old woman told her it was the garden of love. Lisette wondered that such an ugly genius should preside over it, but doubted not she was a good security against invasion ; for who, thought she, would enter into a garden of love, that belonged to so ugly an individual? The fairy, probably, did not guess her thoughts, for she continued in the best of tempers: —

" Every one of these flowers," said she, " is a love. For every new attachment that is formed on earth, another flower springs up ; and with every love that dies, a flower fades."

" No wonder, then, that the perfume is so sweet," replied Lisette.

" I have no power over them," said the old woman ; "we fairies made the garden for our own delight, and as we cannot kill the love, so neither can we kill a flower ; if we pluck its blossom it is formed again."

"Ah!" said Lisette, "that was a beautiful thought to plant a garden on!"

"Not entirely," replied the fairy; "as the event has shewn ; for we mourn more over the buds that are blighted, than we rejoice over the flowers that bloom. And yet we let the garden stay, for it is pleasant to see how much there is that is beautiful on earth. But come now, daughter ! I wished to bring you hither for a better purpose than to talk. The fairies all love you because you nurse their flowers kindly, and they will bestow their highest favors on you. See, I know all these blossoms, and every flower that tells a love which blooms for you, will I pluck and form into a nosegay. So long as he each flower represents is faithful, so long the flower will bloom ; even though severed from its stem, it fades but with his love."

"Aha!" said Lisette, "then point me out Silvan here!"

The fairy touched a beautiful white rose, and was about to pluck it.

" Pluck it not ! Pluck it not ! " cried Lisette in alarm.

"It will be formed again, my child."

"Nay," said Lisette, "but I will not have it plucked; let me have rather the sweet rose that Silvan gave to me : his touch, his words, his blush when he gave it, have clothed it with a greater charm than all your fairy power can bestow on this!"

" See you not," said the old woman, "that the brook has laid it at your feet?"

Lisette picked it up, and kissing it fondly, placed it in her bosom.

" Stay," said the fairy, " let me infuse then into this rose the magic quality."

" What! will you make Silvan's rose to last forever?"

" So long," smiled the fairy, "as his love may last."

"Ay, then, forever," cried Lisette ; "yes, yes, — that do, sweet fairy ; I will tell you now, he confessed his passion when he gave it me this morning. — O that I could wear the precious flower forever in my bosom! "

The fairy breathed upon Silvan' s rose, and returned it to Lisette, who restored it to its place in ecstasy.

Then the fairy busied herself in plucking the other flowers that had blossomed for Lisette ; — Lisette thought she would never have done, so many hearts did she possess; and as the old woman brought to her a nosegay that both hands could scarcely encompass,— "Ah!" said she, " never was a maiden yet that filled my garden with so many flowers as you have done, Lisette ! "

Chapter The Fifth, How Lisette Returned To Floraine And Was Happy

Lisette could not miss her way back, for the course of the brook that she had followed was her guide. The storm had passed over, and the ground was yet wet with the rain that had fallen ; and when Lisette had passed over the desert part of the way, she found the sun glistening so brightly in the rain-drops on the trees, and the perfume of the floAvers was so fresh, all nature so sweet and so lively, that the birds sang again, and the brook seemed to be talking to them as usual, and not to her, as it had done so lately.

Now that Lisette returned at leisure, she was surprised to find what a long way she had followed to recover Silvan' s rose ; but then she had recovered it, and she pressed it fondly against her bosom without fear that she should destroy its beauty, for she knew now that she could not kill the rose by pressing it to her bosom, any more than, by doing the same thing to Silvan, she could kill his love.

Then again she wished that, after all, it were but a simple rose, and that the fairy had not breathed on it ; for she had often heard of the treachery of fairy gold that changes to pebbles in the morning, and had been taught that fairy favors, however kindly given, never thrived with the possessor ; or, that no good can come to any one who trusts rather to the possession of unusual gifts than to the proper direction of his own natural means of action and observation.% But then, thought Lisette, very likely this is true ; but what are all the proverbs and maxims in the world compared with the possession of Silvan' s love, and the being able to keep for ever and ever the rose that Silvan gave me when he told it? So Lisette was happy again, and by the time she returned to Floraine, late in the evening, had dismissed all thought of the danger of possessing fairy favors.

Lisette no sooner entered the valley than she began to wonder whether she should

# This is written more precisely and printed in italics, because it is the moral ; and it is right that the author's originality should be put prominently forward when he contrives that it should be held suspended in the tale itself.

see Silvan, and no sooner began to wonder than she saw him joyously hastening towards her. He thought she had been lost, since she had left Floraine and did not return until so late ; and Lisette laughed within herself, and rejoiced that she had persevered in following the brook, when she saw the blush of delight with which he remarked the flower in her bosom.

" But where did you gather these, my pretty Lisette?" exclaimed he, pointing to the nosegay ; "I know no such sweet flowers in Floraine."

"A stranger gave them to me," said Lisette, for she dared not tell where she had been, nor what had happened to her, since she knew that to be a certain way of incurring the displeasure of the fairies.

Lisette walked with Silvan to the village, and thought she never was so happy, — excepting when she walked with him that morning, and he gave her the rose she now wore.

:Ah! Lisette!" said Silvan, " how I a envy, how I love that rose ! Pity that flowers, even though love has hallowed them, fade in the keeping ! "

"Perhaps," said Lisette, smiling happily, " perhaps our love may be such that its tokens cannot fade. Who can tell?"

Silvan laughed. " We will try," said Lisette ; " look Silvan, — hereby I wish this rose may last forever, and in that case promise that my love lasts with- it! If the rose fade"—

"What then, Lisette?"

" It cannot fade."

" Pretty charmer," said Silvan, laughing, "we will see by this true and lasting token, how faithful a lo^er thou canst be."

Lisette gloried in her little deceit, for she thought it would make Silvan very happy ; and yet it was not a deceit, for, after all, what did she more than say that her love should last as long as Silvan's? .

And the rose bloomed day by day, and Lisette wore it in her bosom, and knew that Silvan remained true, — which, without the flower, she never would have doubted ; and Silvan imagined that, as Lisette had tended all the flowers so well, their spirits loved her, and were obedient to her, and had heard her wish in order to fulfil it.

Chapter The Sixth. How A Certain Corrin Was A Thief

Now among the other lovers of Lisette, or, in other words, among all the young men in Floraine, there was a certain Corrin, who, next to Silvan, loved Lisette most heartily.

Silvan and Corrin were very opposite from each other in appearance. Silvan was a young man with black hair, dark complexion, and flashing eyes. Corrin's hair was auburn, his face delicate, and pale with pining for Lisette ; his blue eyes full of love and tears whenever Lisette's name was mentioned. Corrin saw that Lisette loved Silvan better than himself, although to Corrin, from pity, she was very kind ; but he did not torment her with his fruitless love, lest he should give her pain ; neither did he hate Silvan, (for how could he hate what Lisette loved ?) and so kind-hearted Corrin wasted his life away, sighing in secret. When Lisette was in the valley he would watch her from afar, and then, waiting till she came home, he would go and wander where her steps had been,and look at the flowers she had tended, wishing the while that he had pleased Lisette as well as Silvan.

One day, as Corrin wandered sighing by the brook, he came suddenly upon Lisette, asleep upon a grassy bank. His heart filled as he could now gaze unobserved upon her beauties ; and as she smiled in sleep, he thought her dreams were of Silvan, and sighed heavily.

Then he observed a rose upon her bosom; he knew that there she generally wore one, but no one that looked at Lisette marked her mere ornaments sufficiently to discover that it was always the same flower. Corrin gazed upon the rose and thought, if he stole it from her bosom, what a treasure he should then possess, — how little she would lose ! When it withered still he would preserve the leaves, once hallowed by the favor of Lisette ; and what a consolation it would be to have so dear a token ! He looked at his own flowers, — there was a rose among them exactly like Lisette's ; he would exchange ; Lisette would be no loser, and himself would gain, oh ! how inexpressible a treasure !

So Corrin stooped down and took from Lisette's bosom Silvan' s rose, and put his own rose in its place. And he started as he did so, for he thought he heard a sigh, but it was only the breeze as it passed them.