With swift feet she neared the couch of state, but her steps lingered as she saw within those crimson leaves the delicate, fear-pale face of the Queen, and her sleeping child.
"Always rose-folded!" she murmured, "and I tread the winds abroad! A fair bud, and I am but a stately stem! You were foolish and frail, Queen Lura, that you sent me no word of your harvest-time; now I come angry. Show me the child!"
Mrs. Lita, with awed steps, drew near, and lifted the baby in her arms, and the child's soft hazel eyes looked with grave innocence at Anima. Truly, the Princess was a lovely piece of nature: her hair, like fine silk, fell in dark, yet gilded tresses from her snow-white brow; her eyes were thoughtless, tender, serene; her lips red as the heart of a peach; her skin so fair that it seemed stained with violets where the blue veins crept lovingly beneath; and her dimpled cheeks were flushed with sleep like the sunset sky.
Anima looked at the baby.--"Ah! too much, too much!" said she. "Queen Lura, a butterfly can eat honey only; let us have a higher life for the Princess of Larrièrepensée. Maya, I give thee for a birth-gift another crown. Receive the Spark!"
Queen Lura shrieked; but Anima stretching out her wand, a snake of black diamonds, with a blood-red head, touched the child's eyes, and from the serpent's rapid tongue a spark of fire darted into either eye, and sunk deeper and deeper,--for two tears flowed above, and hung on Maya's silky lashes, as she looked with a preternatural expression of reproach at the Fairy.
Now all was confusion. Queen Lura tried to faint,--she knew it was proper,--and the grand-equerry rang all the palace bells in a row. Anima gave no glance at the little Princess, who still sat upright in Mrs. Lita's petrified arms, but went proudly from the hall alone.
The flower-fairies dropped their wands with one sonorous clang upon the floor, and with bitter sighs and wringing hands flitted one after another to the portal, bewailing, as they went, their wasted gifts and powers.
"Why should I give her beauty?" cried the Fairy Rose; "all eyes will be dazzled with the Spark; who will know on what form it shines?"
"Why should I bring her innocence?" said the Fairy Lily; "the Spark will burn all evil from her, thought and deed!"