time working with the magic palette. He often passed
whole days beside the sheet of water in the forest. He painted it when
the sun shone on it and it was spotted all over with the reflections of
fleeting white clouds. He painted it covered with water lilies rocking
on the ripples. He painted it by moonlight, when but two or three stars
in the empty sky shone down upon it; and at sunset, when it lay
trembling like liquid gold.

So the years passed, and the boy grew to be a man. He had never broken
the charm. The lily had never faded, and he still worked every day with
his magic palette.

But no one cared for his pictures. Even his mother did not like them.
His forests and misty hills and common clouds were too much like the
real ones. She said she could see as good any day by looking out of her
window. All this made the young man very unhappy. He began to doubt
whether he should ever be a painter, and one day he threw down his
palette. He thought the fairy had deserted him.

He threw himself on his bed. It grew dark, and he soon fell asleep; but
in the middle of the night he awoke with a start. His chamber was full
of light, and his fairy friend stood near.

"Shall I take back my gift?" she asked.

"Oh, no, no, no!" he cried. He was rested now, and he did not feel so
much discouraged.

"If you still wish to go on working, take this ring," said the fairy.
"My sister sends it to you. Wear it, and it will greatly assist the
charm."

He took the ring, and the fairy was gone. The ring was set with a
beautiful blue stone, which reflected everything bright that came near
it; and he thought he saw inside the ring the one word--"Hope."

Many more years passed. The young man's mother died, and he went far,
far from home. In the strange land to which he went people thought his
pictures were wonderful; and he had become a great and famous painter.

One day he went to see a large collection of pictures in a great city.
He saw many of his own pictures, and some of them had been painted
before he left his forest home. All the people and the painters praised
them; but there was one that they liked better than the others. It was a
picture of a little child, holding in its hands several water lilies.

Toward evening the people departed one by one, till he was left alone
with his masterpieces. He was sitting in a chair thinking of leaving the
place, when he suddenly fell asleep. And he dreamed that he was again
standing near