The Magicians Show Box and Other Stories | Page 6

because they had now
nothing to give the little gray man for a peep into it.
"Wait a moment," said the girl; and running into her house, which they
were passing, she brought out a golden cup full of red wine. "I think he
will like this better than the water--do not you?"
When they came to the milestone, there sat the gray man, cracking
away as inveterately as ever. "I should think he would be tired to
death," said Gaspar. "Think how much I have seen of the world while
he has been cracking those old nuts."
The little man overheard him, and smiled to himself, as much as to say,
"I know;" but when he saw the young girl, he rose up and made quite a
profound bow. "He never bowed to me," thought Gaspar.
"Will you let me look into your ivory show box, and I will give you a
drink of red wine," said the girl.
"It is a poor thing," answered the magician, "not worthy of your
attention; but if you will vouchsafe me a sip of the wine, I have been
cracking these dry nuts so long. Ah, I do begin to be weary!" The girl
peeped into the show box. "All very pretty, but rather stiff and
monotonous," she said. "Not so good as you can paint, Gaspar. Come,
let us go home."
She made the gray man a pleasant little courtesy, took her vase of wine,
and she and Gaspar went back to the village to paint their own pictures,
leaving the little magician to crack his nuts and look into his show box
as long as he pleased.

THE VIOLET FLAME
Rosamond was the child of a village blacksmith, and of a lady said by
the villagers to be a princess from a far land. She herself claimed to be
descended from an Ocean Queen; but no one believed that, except her
little girl, who thought her mother must know best. Rosamond would
sit by her for hours, gazing into the river that flowed through their

garden, and listening to her mothers stories of golden palaces beneath
the water. But she also liked to pry about her father's forge, and wonder
at the quick sparks and great roaring fires. Her cousin Alfred would
stay there with her, but while she was watching the red glow of the fire
and the heavy fall of her father's hammer, he was gazing upon the
violet flame that flickered above her forehead.
One day, when she was playing with him in the picture gallery of the
old castle, in which his mother was housekeeper, she called him to look
at the portrait of a child daintily holding a bird on the tip of her finger,
and arrayed in the quaint richness of the old-fashioned costume. "She
looks like you," her cousin said, "only she has not a little trembling
flame upon her forehead."
"Have I a flame upon my forehead?" asked Rosamond, wondering.
"Come and look," answered Alfred, and he led her to a great mirror,
where she for the first time saw the violet flame. "How beautiful it is!"
she exclaimed.
"O, but it is growing dim; you must not look at it," said Alfred. "Come
and let us run up and down the garden, between the great hedges."
But Rosamond, having once seen the violet flame, could not be
satisfied until she had been to the castle to take another look, and found
so much pleasure in gazing at herself in the great mirror, that she went
every day to pay herself a stolen visit, while Alfred was at school. But
one day he found her there, and said, "I see how it is that the pretty
flame has gone; you have been admiring it too much by yourself. I shall
not love you now."
Then Rosamond felt very sorry, and wondered how she could win back
Alfred's love. At length she took all her money, with which she had
intended to buy her old nurse a warm cloak for the winter, and bought a
golden _feronière_ with a purple stone in it, to wear around her head in
the place of the vanished flame. Then she walked into the picture
gallery with a proud step. "O Rosamond!" exclaimed her cousin, "can
you believe that bit of purple glass can replace the dancing flame that
shone with, such a lovely violet light over your golden hair? Pray take
it off, for it seems mere tinsel to me."
But neither he nor Rosamond could unclasp the _feronère;_ and she
had to go back to the jeweller, of whom she bought it, to ask him to file
it off, which he tried in vain to do; and at last he said, "The pedler who

sold it