“And if it had not been for my vanity,” she sighed to herself, “I need not have been hurt at all. It was only that which made me want the bird’s wing. Ah, what a little thing beauty is to be so vain of!”
When her face was healed she strolled to the water’s edge, and stood looking down at it. All the neighbours had been very kind to her during her illness, and no one said anything to her about the mark on her face, but she knew well that her beauty was gone forever.
“If Erick would only come back,” she said as she stood looking at the water, “I should not now be always thinking about my looks, as he talked to me; I would think of him instead.”
When the water elves heard her words, they flew to the wise old elf, and said—
“See how hardly she has been punished. She is quite cured of her vanity. Let us cut the ropes of sand, and let her image free.”
But the old elf shook his head, and said—
“Not just yet. Wait a little longer.”
As Lamorna stood gazing over the water, she did not know that someone came up behind her, but she heard her name called, and looking round she saw a soldier with only one arm standing by her. He was so altered and brown that she looked at him for some time before she saw that it was Erick. Then she gave a little cry, and holding out her hands called him by his name.
“Did you really know me again, dear Lamorna?” he said, coming up to her. “I thought you would quite have forgotten me by now. And see how changed I am—I have only one arm.”
Then Lamorna turned her face, and showed him the scar. “I am more changed than you, Erick,” she said; “see here.” But she thought, “Now he will cease to love me, when he sees how ugly I am grown,” and she felt inclined to cry.
But Erick said nothing about her face. Only he asked her if she were glad he was come back.
“I am very, very glad,” she said. “Ah, how I missed you after you were gone!”
“Is that really true, Lamorna?” said Erick. “And all the time I was away I thought of no one but you; and now I should not dare: to ask you to be the wife of a poor broken-down fellow like me.”
“But if you will have me, Erick,” said Lamorna, “I will be your wife and love you dearly;” and they kissed each other, and settled that they would be married as soon as they could. And then they went home to tell Erick’s mother, and were as happy as they could be.
So they were married, and on the evening afterwards Lamorna asked Erick to go down with her to the rocks on which they had sat the evening before he went away. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and the sea was smooth as glass.
“It was on just such a night as this that we last sat here,” said Erick; “but how different you were then! Do you remember how unkind you were to me that night?”
“Yes, Erick, indeed I do,” said she. “But my looks were different then as well. I don’t mind about them for myself, but I wish I had not lost my pretty face, as you used to admire it.”
When the water elves heard these words, the old elf said—
“Now is the time!” and they all hastened to the reflection and cut the sand ropes, and with a mighty crash it rose straight through the water to the surface, exactly beneath Lamorna’s gaze.
“Erick!” she cried with a start, “what’s the matter? Has anything happened to the moon?”
“No, dear Lamorna, it is all right. Are you ill?” asked Erick anxiously.
“I think I must have been ill for the last year, and now I am quite well again,” said Lamorna, as she looked at her own face in the water.
“How much my cheek is marked! But I don’t mind it if you don’t, dear Erick;” and Erick kissed the scar, and told her he loved her all the better for it.
The water elves made a great festival when they heard this, and danced till morning.
“Anyhow, that is one good thing we have done in the past year,” they said. “We have cured Vain Lamorna.”
“Ah, a terrible thing is vanity!” said the Shawl-pin solemnly. “I have suffered from it. I myself make a point of pricking anyone who I think is getting too vain.”
“It rather depends on what one has to be vain of,” said the Brooch. “Of course some people are vain of almost nothing.”
“I like your story,” said the Pin, “but I cannot say that I consider it natural.”
“It is true, nevertheless,” said the Brooch. “Now someone else must tell one. Perhaps the Shawl-pin will oblige us.”
The Shawl-pin hesitated for some time, and then said he would try and remember a story which was told to him many years back by an Indian Scarf into which he was often stuck.
The Seeds of Love
Many years ago, in a country far over the sea, was a little village standing by a great river; and over the river was a bridge, with gates which were opened and shut when carriages and horses went through. A little white cottage stood close beside the bridge, and in it lived an old woman and her two granddaughters, whose business it was to open and shut the heavy iron gates. The woman was very old, and her two granddaughters were the children of her two sons, who were both dead; so the young girls were cousins. They were just the same age, but not the least alike. They were named Zaire and
