NARCISSA.
While Violet sat on the doorstep wondering whether to please Alfred and
his father by going to live with them or to stay with her favorites in
the cottage, Narcissa came in sight.
She was limping along with her crutches through the grass, and looked
very pale and tired; for the walk from the wood to the cottage, which
was nothing to Violet, was a great undertaking to the lame girl. She
never walked as far in any other direction; but some how the path to
Violet's seemed the smoothest and easiest.
Shall I tell you why? Because the fairy Love went before her, picking up
every rough stone and bur or brier, and when the sun was hottest, shaded
the invalid with her delicate purple wings.
Violet, too, had taught Narcissa how many pleasant things there are in
the world even for one who is sick. So, instead of fretting because the
way was dusty and the sunshine hot, Narcissa looked up at the cool green
leaves which were fanning her, and watched along all the way to see what
beautiful flowers the heat and light were opening. She, too, had learned
to love the cool song of the brook; to be glad--though she could not
follow them herself, poor cripple!--that the butterflies could flutter
about and drink honey from all the flowers, and the squirrels could dart
away with their nuts, and the birds go sailing and singing up into the
far blue sky.
Her old fairy, Envy, was banished forever from Narcissa's heart, and in
its place dwelt Violet's fairy, Love, and Contentment, Love's unfailing
friend.
The moment these fairies came, her heart began to grow larger and purer;
for it only takes a small soul to hold such a miserable little sprite as
Envy, who is so mean and poor that he makes every place poor into which
he enters, though he looks fine enough in his cloak streaked with
purple, gold, and red, like the gaudiest of tulips.
No wonder Narcissa was glad to make the exchange of friends; for Love
soon taught her that the way to be happy is to forget all about
ourselves, and be glad whenever another is glad, no matter how humble a
thing. So when she watched the sunshine creep towards a flower that had
been waiting for it in the shade, or when she saw a young bird fly for
the first time, or, in frosty mornings that made her sick frame shiver,
when she heard the nuts rattle down, and knew the frost had opened their
burs, and that the children would be glad, Narcissa's heart would be so
full of sympathy that I am not sure but she was the happiest of all.