LEGEND OF THE FLOWER-SPIRITS. 
107 
were placed over the woods, and fair forms drew 
out the lines in which the bending water-courses 
were to run, while the most beautiful spirits, that 
kept watch and ward over the gardens of heaven, 
were sent down to superintend, and give the 
finishing strokes of beauty to the flowers. From 
many that were gaudy in colour and graceful in 
form, they took away the fragrance, transferring 
their perfume to lowlier flowers, whose loveliness 
would have been overlooked, had not sweetness been 
added to their beauty. 
The blossom of the Woodbine was thrown aside 
pale and neglected, until one fair spirit took it up, 
and breathed into it an odour which she had brought 
from the opening blossoms of Eden ; another took 
up her palette, on which was spread out every hue 
of the rainbow, and gave to the pallid Woodbine 
a golden and crimson hue ; while a third squeezed 
into its cup a drop of the sweetest honey ; and a 
fourth, around whose slender waist were twined 
trailing stems of every form, took out the longest, 
and fastened to it the head of the beautiful Wood¬ 
bine. Tall and graceful did she arise from her seat 
when she had finished, and twisting it gracefully 
around her, and as the sun-stained flower rested 
upon the parted amber of her ringlets, she exclaimed, 
“ I will exalt this flower over every blossom of the 
