usly none had
appeared. They had tasted the rapture of a more beautiful life; and now
the ordinary toils of humanity appeared "stale, flat, and unprofitable,"
and common men and women tedious, rude, and mean. But the brave knight
struggled against this feeling. "Shall we be so ungrateful, because a
glimpse of the earthly paradise has been vouchsafed us, as to sink into
idle, repining dreamers? Shall we allow the visions of fancy, or the
charms of nature, to steal away our hearts from human sympathy? Rather
let these remembered joys excite us to fresh effort; let the useful and
the good be ever clad with beauty, in our eyes; let us act as men,
strive and be strong in our rightful purposes, sure that in the end the
true will ever prove to be the beautiful." He might have said, in the
language of a modern poet,

"I slept, and dream'd that Life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that Life was Duty:
Was then thy dream a shadowy lie?
Toil on, sad heart, courageously,
And thou shall find thy dream to be
A noonday light and truth to thee."

In due time, they arrived at the imperial court. Some important events
had taken place during their absence. The splendors of royalty had not
been able to preserve the Emperor from a loathsome disease, from which
his attendants fled away in horror. The Princess Clotilda could not
endanger her beauty by approaching his side; neither did the cares and
toils of a sick-bed comport with her views of life. But Edith now took
her rightful position, and by her fearless example recalled those around
her to a sense of duty. She was her father's gentle, untiring nurse: his
wishes were forestalled, his fretfulness soothed, and his thoughts
directed to higher things. She rose in her father's love day by day, as
he felt her worth; and bitterly did he now think of the undeserved
slight with which she had been treated, while the ungrateful Clotilda
had been his pride. He was at present recovering from his illness; but
he felt himself unequal to the labors of his position, and had seriously
resolved to lay down the crown and sceptre, that he might end his days
in peace. He had announced the day when his daughters should fix upon
one of the suitors for their hands, and when the assembly of barons and
knights should decide upon the successor to his throne.

The Knight of the Blooming Rose was gladly welcomed back to court. In
the Emperor's presence, he presented the magic flowe