o give a zest to our simple pleasures, relieving them
from any tinge of sameness or insipidity. When the _denouement_ came we
did not exactly see things in the same light certainly, and it took some
time to settle thoroughly down into our present theory, that "it was all
for the best."

It is the old story of Thomas the Rhymer over and over again (we were
all rhymers once). The lover knows that there is peril in the path, but
not the less joyously he strides on by the side of the beautiful queen.
How sweetly they ring, the silver bells on the neck of the milk-white
palfrey; not so sweetly, though, as her low, musical tones. So on they
fare, till the world of realities is left far behind, and they find
themselves at their journey's end. It is very happy, that year spent in
her kingdom; but so like a dream that he does not appreciate its
pleasures so well at the moment as he will in the weary after-years. Yet
the waking came too soon. The sojourner had not half grown tired of his
resting-place; the bloom has not faded on the wondrous fruits and
flowers: the strangely sweet wine has not lost its savor, when it is
time for him to be gone, for a dreadful whisper runs through the company
that to-morrow the teind to hell must be paid. Well, the black
tax-gatherer is balked by a day, and the wanderer is back at Ercildoune
again. Very dreary looks the gray, bare moorland. Do they call that
foliage on the stunted fir-trees? It is only the ghost of a forest. The
trim parterres have no beauty or fragrance for one that has lingered in
more glorious gardens and plucked redder roses. Tabret and viol jangle
harshly in the ears that have rioted in melodies made by fairy harpers.
The village maidens may be comely, but they are somewhat clumsy withal;
the earthen floor trembles under their feet when they lead their simple
dances; very different from the steps that kept time to a wild, weird
music, stirring but scarcely bending the grass-blades. There is no color
in their flaxen locks, and little light in their pale-blue eyes; these
will not bear comparison with the smooth, braided tresses that
glistened like blue-black serpents, or the glances that rained down
liquid fire through the twilight of the forests of Elf-land. Slowly the
discontented dreamer realizes the fact that the spell is still upon
him--riveted when he stole that first fatal kiss in despite of his
mistress's warning. Nothing is left for him now but to expiate his folly
in