HOW THE FAIRY VIOLET
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he Fairy Violet lived in the heart of a beautiful forest, where,through the glad spring months, the sun shone softly, and thebright flowers bloomed, and now and then the gentle rain fellin silver drops that made every green thing on which they restedfresher and more beautiful still. At the foot of a stately oak nestleda clump of violets, and it was there the wee fairy made her home.She wore a robe of deep violet, and her wings, which were of themost delicate gauze, glistened like dew-drops in the sun. All daylong she was busy at work tending her flowers, bathing them in thefresh morning dew, painting them anew with her delicate fairy brush,or loosening the clay when it pressed too heavily upon their fragileroots; and at night she joined the elves in their merry dance uponthe greensward. She was not alone in the great forest; nearher were many of her sister fairies, all old friends and playmates.[4]There was the Fairy Primrose in a gown of pale yellow, and Cowslip,who wore a robe of the same colour, but of a deeper shade. Therewas the graceful Bluebell, and the wild Anemone, the delicate Woodsorrel,and the Yellow Kingcup. The Fairy Bluebell wore a robethe colour of the sky on a calm summer's day, Anemone and Woodsorrelwere clad in pure white, while Kingcup wore a gown ofbright amber. One day, as the Fairy Violet was resting from thenoonday heat on the open leaves of her favourite flower, a noisy troopof boys, just set free from school, came dashing at full speed throughthe forest. "Hallo! there is a nest in that tree," cried one, and hetrod ruthlessly on the violets as he sprang up the trunk of the ancientoak. The Fairy Violet was thrown to the ground, with a shock thatleft her for a time stunned and motionless.
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