il
most lamentably did I attempt to tell you how prettily they danced upon
the greensward of the meadowlands throughout the summer nights.
Sometimes the other fairies and elves joined them,--delicate little
lady fairies with gossamer wings, and chubby little lady elves clad in
filmy spider webs,--and they danced and danced and danced, while the
three crickets went "Chirp-chirp, chirp-chirp, chirp-chirp," all night
long. Now it was very strange--was it not?--that instead of loving one
of these delicate little lady fairies, or one of these chubby little
lady elves, both Dewlove and Beambright loved the rose. Yet, she was
indeed very beautiful.

The thrush did not pester the rose with his protestations of love. He
was not a particularly proud fellow, but he thought too much of the
rose to vex her with his pleadings. But all day long he would perch in
the thicket and sing his songs as only a thrush can sing to the
beautiful rose he loves. He sung, we will say, of the forests he had
explored, of the famous river he had once seen, of the dew which the
rose loved, of the storm-king that slew the old pine and made his cones
into a crown,--he sung of a thousand things which we might not
understand, but which pleased the rose because she understood them.
And one day the thrush swooped down from the linden upon a monstrous
devil's darning-needle that came spinning along and poised himself to
stab the beautiful rose. Yes, like lightning the thrush swooped down
on this murderous monster, and he bit him in two, and I am glad of it,
and so are you if your heart be not wholly callous.

"How comes it," said the rose-tree to the thrush that day,--"how comes
it that you do not woo my daughter? You have shown that you love her;
why not speak to her?"

"No, I will wait," answered the thrush. "She has many wooers, and each
wooes her in his own way. Let me show her by my devotion that I am
worthy of her, and then perchance she will listen kindly to me when I
speak to her."

The rose-tree thought very strange of this; in all her experience of
bringing out her fair daughters into society she had never before had
to deal with so curious a lover as the thrush. She made up her mind to
speak for him.

"My daughter," said she to the rose, "the thrush loves you; of all your
wooers he is the most constant and the most amiable. I pray that you
will hear kindly to his suit."

The rose laughed carelessly,--yes, merrily,--as if she heed