Page:Morning-Glories and Other Stories.djvu/36

 THE

CHAPTER I.

NCE upon a time there lived in Fairyland a family who, as is the custom, bore the name of the flower which was their care. There was the papa, the mamma, and four little daughters, Blush, Brier, Moss, and Eglantine,—or Tina, as her playmates called her, for she was a baby-elf still lying in her green cradle, and had not yet learned to use her gauzy little wings as her sisters did. Their home was in a rose-tree, among whose flowers they found all that elves could need. In some they slept with the petals drooping like crimson curtains over them to shield from wind and rain; in others they laid their gossamer garments, making them fresh and fragrant with the perfume of the leaves between which they were folded. On the slender branches hung their harps,—we call them cobwebs, and hear no sound, but to the delicate senses of the fairy folk there came airy melodies as the wind swept by. A broad-leaved plantain grew at the rose-tree's root, and there they spread their dainty meals;—little loaves of flower-dust and honey, fresh dew in red-brimmed moss-cups, a single berry prettily sliced on a lesser leaf, and eaten in acorn-cups, with cream from the milk-weed, and sugar from the red-clover 29