While Violet sat on the doorstep wondering whether to please Alfred and his father by going to live with them or to stay with her favorites in the cottage, Narcissa came in sight.

She was limping along with her crutches through the grass, and looked very pale and tired; for the walk from the wood to the cottage, which was nothing to Violet, was a great undertaking to the lame girl. She never walked as far in any other direction; but some how the path to Violet's seemed the smoothest and easiest.

Shall I tell you why? Because the fairy Love went before her, picking up every rough stone and bur or brier, and when the sun was hottest, shaded the invalid with her delicate purple wings.

Violet, too, had taught Narcissa how many pleasant things there are in the world even for one who is sick. So, instead of fretting because the way was dusty and the sunshine hot, Narcissa looked up at the cool green leaves which were fanning her, and watched along all the way to see what beautiful flowers the heat and light were opening. She, too, had learned to love the cool song of the brook; to be glad—though she could not follow them herself, poor cripple!—that the butterflies could flutter about and drink honey from all the flowers, and the squirrels could dart away with their nuts, and the birds go sailing and singing up into the far blue sky.

Her old fairy, Envy, was banished forever from Narcissa's heart, and in its place dwelt Violet's fairy, Love, and Contentment, Love's unfailing friend.

The moment these fairies came, her heart began to grow larger and purer; for it only takes a small soul to hold such a miserable little sprite as Envy, who is so mean and poor that he makes every place poor into which he enters, though he looks fine enough in his cloak streaked with purple, gold, and red, like the gaudiest of tulips.

No wonder Narcissa was glad to make the exchange of friends; for Love soon taught her that the way to be happy is to forget all about ourselves, and be glad whenever another is glad, no matter how humble a thing. So when she watched the sunshine creep towards a flower that had been waiting for it in the shade, or when she saw a young bird fly for the first time, or, in frosty mornings that made her sick frame shiver, when she heard the nuts rattle down, and knew the frost had opened their burs, and that the children would be glad, Narcissa's heart would be so full of sympathy that I am not sure but she was the happiest of all.