Princess Ruby-Throat. 



253 



called her pretty names until it was time 

 for her to go home, and then with promises 

 to meet the next day they parted. 



But at the appointed hour, when the earth 

 child came singing through the woods, with 

 flowers in her hair, and the amber honey 

 gleaming through the crystal vial, little 

 Ruby-Throat failed to make her appear- 

 ance. 



" Gem of the Day, where art thou?" cried 

 the child, looking round in bewilderment, 

 for the fairy had never before failed to 

 come at her call. 



But she waited in vain, and at last went 

 sadly home, for her little friend was even 

 then lying stunned and bruised in the 

 cruel net which had caught her, and in a 

 moment deprived her of the liberty with- 

 out which her young life seemed only cruel 

 mockery. 



Poor Ruby-Throat ! When she came to 

 herself and looked around that strange 

 place to which her captor had brought her, 

 her heart grew sick with fear. She was too 

 weak and stunned to feel like moving at 

 first, but as her strength came back to her 

 she felt a little ray of hope, for she saw that 

 her prison was not all surrounded by those 

 thick, ugly walls, but that here and there 

 were openings through which the blue sky 

 and green trees appeared. 



She began to think that her captivity was 

 all a mistake, and looked around with in- 

 terest to see what the place was like, while 

 her wings were getting back some of their 

 wonted strength. She saw with surprise 

 several of her old friends in this place, 

 whom she had missed for some time. Here 

 were Emerald-Throat and Topaz, her cou- 

 sins, and there on a little perch sat Azure- 

 Crown, looking at her with friendly recog- 

 nition. 



Ruby-Throat saw that there were innum- 

 erable other occupants of the room besides 

 those of her own class. There were robins, 

 and thrushes, and goldfinches, and orioles, 

 and then there were beautifnl butterflies. 



and giant moths, and gold and silver fishes. 

 There were also flowers and palms, and 

 gold-green mosses, but Ruby-Throat forgot 

 everything else in her astonishment at see- 

 ing that the butterflies and moths did not 

 move but seemed glued against the wall; 

 that the fishes had to be content with tiny 

 little lakes where it seemed they had no 

 room to move in, and that the singing birds 

 all sat quietly on gilded perches, while their 

 wings must have been aching for a long 

 flight through the breezy woods. 



But when Ruby-Throat felt able to fly 

 and tried to pass out through one of those 

 open spaces, she found this mystery all ex- 

 plained, for her flight was barred, by what? 

 She did -not know, but something kept her 

 from flying outside, though the sky and the 

 trees seemed so near, and she felt just as 

 helpless as she had felt one day when she 

 saw a fairy just like herself looking at her 

 from the bottom of the spring, and she 

 could not get to her though she tried and 

 tried, till her wings were wet and ached 

 with weariness. And so she found she was 

 a prisoner here just as much as when she 

 lay in that fatal net whose meshes were 

 stronger than any ever woven by the fiercest 

 Gray Giants that had ever lived, and as the 

 poor princess realized this her heart sank 

 again, and she felt as though life was too 

 bitter to bear. 



And as the days passed it grew still har- 

 der, although her captor brought her bright 

 flowers and honey as sweet as any she had 

 ever tasted, for one by one her friends sick- 

 ened and died — first Emerald-Throat, and 

 then Topaz, and last of all Azure-Crown, 

 while she was left alone among strangers. 

 She noticed that as each of her relatives 

 died the more attentive to her her captor 

 became, and that he tried in every way to 

 make her contented and happy; but she 

 was too miserable to be comforted, and only 

 cared to die too, so that she could wake up 

 perhaps in some other world where such 

 cruelty was unknown. 



