56 THE ELFIN EXILE. 



ness of a loftier and bolder nature, he wooed the gentle fairy 

 to trustfulness and happiness. 



Mimosa had shrunk from the feeble and freakish love of her 

 own people ; she had shut up her heart from the influences of 

 the mystic passion ; but the bold bearing, the proud tenderness, 

 the gentle, yet lofty courtesy of the woodland spirit, won her 

 admiring affection. Alone and exiled from the sweet but ener- 

 vating influences of fairy frolics, she learned the high, free 

 pleasures of forest life. Ere the moon had waned, Mimosa 

 had learned the happiness of loving ; and the delicate English 

 fairy became the bride of the Indian Manitto of Flowers. 



No longer pining after her distant home, she yet delighted to 

 exhibit some of its beauties to her lover, and many a wild- 

 flower until then unknown in our forest glades, did her sweet 

 breath call into life to adorn the enchanted glen where the pair 

 had found their home. 



" And is this the reason why so many English wildflowers 

 are found in our woodlands, while the richest and most gorgeous 

 of our wildflowers refuse to spring spontaneous in the fair 

 garden of Albion's lovely isle ?" 



" Precisely — the wildflowers which the fairy strewed in her 

 lover's pathway, though changed by atmosphere and soil, are 

 yet of the same race as those of her own far land." 



" And where is now the Manitto and his fairy bride ?" 



