Page:Grimm's Fairy Tales.djvu/101

Rh tale, and felt gloomy at the change from fairy land to her father's cottage.

Little by little she came to herself, thought of her story as a mere dream, and soon became Martin's bride. Everything seemed to thrive around them; and Roseken thought of her friends, and so called her first little girl Elfie. The little thing was loved by every one. It was pretty and very good-tempered. Roseken thought that it was very like a little elf; and all, without knowing why, called it the fairy-child.

One day, while Roseken was dressing her little Elfie, she found a piece of gold hanging round her neck by a silken thread; and knew it to be of the same sort as she had seen in the hands of the fairy dwarfs. Elfie seemed sorry at its being seen, and said that she had found it in the garden. But Roseken watched her, and soon found that she went every afternoon to sit by herself in a shady place behind the house. So one day she hid herself to see what the child did there, and to her great wonder Gossamer was sitting by her side. "Dear Elfie," she was saying, "your mother and I used to sit thus when she was young and lived among us. Oh, if you could but come and do so too! But since our queen came to us it cannot be; yet I will come and see you, and talk to you whilst you are a child; when you grow up we must part for ever." Then she plucked one of the roses that grew around them, and breathed gently upon it, and said, "Take this for my sake! it will now keep fresh for a whole year."

Then Roseken loved her little Elfie more than ever; and when she found that she spent some hours of almost every day with the elf, she used to hide herself and watch them without being seen; till one day, when