in life."

THE LOST SYLPHID.

"I tell the tale as 'twas told to me."

I have heard that one night, on a distant shore, a band of
water-nixies were dancing to gentle music, their golden sandals
twinkling like stars.

A lord and lady were walking on the same shore. The lord's eyes were
bent on the ground; but his wife paused, and said,--

"Listen, my lord, to that enchanting music!"

"I hear no music," he replied, laughing. "You must wake up, dear wife.

"With half-shut eyes, ever you seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream."

"But, my lord, those exquisite beings in gossamer robes! surely you
see them!"

"I see the play of the moonbeams, my love, and nothing more."

But the wife stood transfixed. One beautiful fairy, taller and fairer
than her companions, had wings, and floated through the dance,
scarcely touching the earth.

"Was ever such a vision of loveliness?" cried the enraptured lady:
"she must be my own little daughter,--eat of my bread, and sleep upon
my bosom."

Then, kneeling, she sang,--

"Fair little nixies, that dwell near the water,
Give me the winged one to be my own daughter."

The dance ceased. The nixies, bewildered, looked north and south, and
knew not which way to flee; but the winged fairy, attracted by the
human love in the lady's eyes, glided slowly forward. Then the nixies
stormed in fierce wrath, their willowy figures swaying to and fro as
if blown by the wind.

"They shall not harm you, little one. Come with me, be my own
daughter, and I will carry you home."

"Home!" echoed the lovely child; "my home is in the Summer-land. Oh,
will you indeed carry me there?"

Then she folded her white wings, and nestled in the lady's bosom like
a gentle dove, and was borne to a beautiful castle that overlooked the
sea. The water-nixies soon forgot her, for they could not hold her
memory in their little humming-bird hearts.

She was not of their race. Her wings were soft and transparent, like
those of a white butterfly; and she ever declared that she had once
alighted from a cloud, and been caught in a nixie's net spread upon
the grass.

But, in time, her wings dwindled and disappeared; and then the lord,
who was now her father, could not remember that she had ever been
other than an earthly child.

"You fancy you were once a sylphid," said he; "but there are no
sylphids, my sweet one, and there is no Summer-land."

The child became as dear to the lord and