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And thence we came our Puck to see
In his royal court on the fairy lea."-

"Where's Cobweb and his Fairies three?".
"Here upon your right hand.

We have been footing it over the sea,
And footing it over the land.
We flutter'd down the vale,

And hover'd over the hill,
And our tiny wings did sail
Round every fairy rill.

We met with Goodman Place,

As he came half drunk from the fair,

We tickled his jolly red face

As we flew along through the air.
We met in the shade of the hill
With a honey-bee alone,
Just where the fairy rill

Is a moising down the stone,
Where the lady's fern is green,
And the cowslips blooming fair,
Where the kingcup gold is seen,
And the violet scents the air.
He had stolen the sweets from the bower
That alone for us fairies grew,
And from many a quivering flower
Had shaken the morning dew.
He was far from the poison-stings,
And aid from his pirate crew,
So we held him fast by his wings,
And brought him here to you."

Here there was a kind of buzzing and struggling heard among the long grass just by, and Cobweb's three assistants were seen dragging in by main force an unfortunate honey-bee. John Kann jumped down from his puff-ball, and ran to see the fun. As he went up close to the bee, Cobweb hollowed out,

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My wing!" said John Kann; "that's a good one!" However, he just looked round for curiosity sake, to see what the fairy alluded to. Never was man before so astonished as John Kann was when he saw two beautiful little pale rose-coloured butterflywings attached to his back, just behind his shoulders. "It's very funny," said he to himself. "I suppose they must be hooked on outside. They can never be fixed on my back, and me with my coat on the while." However, upon putting his hand behind, he felt that there were two holes in his coat, just big enough to let the wings come through.

Could he move his wings? Flip flap, flip flap-they worked beautifully.

* Moising, from the verb to moise, or trickle down, whence we get the word moist, or moised. The other parts of the verb are, however, not yet obsolete in the Isle of Wight.

Could he fly with them? He tried. Up he went into the air as light as a thistle-down.

Should he fly home at once? Dangerous dangerous, thought he; there are such a terrible number of hawks about. So, after taking two or three spiral skimmings in the air, he alighted down again upon his own proper puff-ball.

He found the fairies busily employed preparing their supper from the honey and bee-bread that they had taken from their prisoner. They had scraped the bee-bread from the thighs of the bee, and were rolling them up into very small balls, somewhat smaller than the many-coloured sugarplums that pastry cooks sell under the name of fairies' eggs. This name, however, is derived from a vulgar error. Fairies never lay any eggs at all. But the very little

round balls that are sometimes found where fairies have been dancing and enjoying themselves, and been suddenly disturbed, are their loaves of bread, and not their eggs.

Some others of Puck's attendants had emptied the bee's honey-bag into an acorn-cup, and were diluting it with dew-drops, which they brought one drop at a time, rolling about upon the shining flowerleaf of the buttercup. The little fellow that was acting the part of punch-maker was steadily at work, stirring up the mess with the long stamen of a honeysuckle, till he considered it sufficiently diluted for the taste of fairies. Having completed it to his satisfaction, he took off his foxglove cap, he made a bow to Mr. Puck, and another to his guest, John Kann.

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Upon my word," said John Kann, " you really do not mean that we are all to sup out of that one acorn-cup, and have nothing more than those wee wee pills to eat? Why, small as I am, I could eat twice as much as all of it put together myself."

To which Mr. Puck replied,

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Immediately the operation of throwing fine brown dust up Kann's nose was resumed, till he sneezed and sneezed, and grew smaller and smaller. At length, in consequence of his head diminishing in size, the foxglove cap that he wore slipped down over his face. A fairy by his side helped him to take it off, and to put on the flower of a blue harebell, which fitted his head to a T. Upon looking round, he perceived that all the fairies had changed their foxglove caps for bluebells, their charms apparently having no power to reduce the size of real flowers, although they could vary their own statures at pleasure.

A very merry supper they had. Mr. Puck and his friends ate and drank, and danced and sung. It struck John Kann that many of them were getting a cup too much, and that Mr. Puck himself was beginning to be a little fuddled. However, before things went any farther, Mr. Puck nodded to a fairy that was standing close to him

with the long flower of a honeysuckle in his hand; upon which the fairy put the honeysuckle flower to his mouth, as if it had been a horn, and began trumpeting away upon it. John Kann could not say that the sound was exactly like a trumpet; but certainly it was more like a trumpet than anything else that he knew of. The moment the merry company heard the trumpet they left off feasting and singing, and became instantly silent, grave, and sober. Mr. Puck then turned to John Kann, and said,

"Mr. John Kann,

My little man,

Though fairies like honey,

Men like money.

Is it not so?

Is it not so?"

John Kann took off his harebell cap, made a bow, and said, “ Just

so."

Puck continued,

"The yellow gold,

Fair to behold,

Heavy in hand,

Doth men command.
Should you like such?

Should you like such?"

John Kann here made another bow, and answered, " Very much. But the fact is," he continued, "my most worshipful little gentleman, if you were to give me all the gold in the world, I am not big enough or strong enough to carry more than one seven-shilling piece at the outside, that is to say, unless it is your pleasure to make me tall again before you hand me over the money."

Mr. Puck got very fidgety at this ill-timed interruption, and kept waving his hand backwards and forwards in token of his royal impatience. When John Kann stopped, he continued,—

"There is a spot that you may see

When walking on the strand,

Half the day beneath the sea,

And half upon the land.

You shall know when the morning sun

Is shining fierce and bright,

Where the treasure must be won

By the gold grains glistening bright.

The spot is marked by a stone

Pierced right through and through.
Talk not of this-go there alone,

Or bid the treasure adieu."

John Kann here stood up again, and made another bow. Upon which Mr. Puck said,

"Puff-ball, turn brown-
John Kann, sit down."

The puff-ball immediately began changing from its snow-white colour, as if it had been baking in an oven, and the outer skin became shrivelly all over, and when John Kann sat down again, it burst as if its covering had been no stronger than a cobweb, and im

mediately he was enveloped in a cloud of dust, which got into his eyes and made them smart so, that for a long time he was completely blinded. When, by dint of rubbing and rubbing his eyes, he began to see a little again, he was surprised to find all his fairy companions flown, and himself restored to his original size, sitting alone on the little level spot on the hill side, which has been described before. The sun was shining bright and clear.

"I will have a look for the gold, at any rate," thought he, "before I return home."

He descended the hill, and walked along the shore, as he had been directed. The tide was low, and the rays of the morning sun were reflected brightly on the wet sand. After a little search, he found a large flint stone with a hole in it, lying by itself upon the level smooth sand. The sand thereabouts certainly did appear to glisten rather more than elsewhere; he took some up in his hand, and found a number of little bright grains amongst it.

friend

"This is gold, then," said he to himself, as he cut a caper in the air from very joy. "What a lucky fellow I am! or, us my Mr. Puck would say,

"John Kann,
Lucky man!

It strikes me that, if I had lived in fairy society a little longer, I should have learned to talk poetry myself. But how am I to become possessed of all this gold without anybody else finding it out?—for Mr. Puck said particularly, that if anybody else found it out, there would be no more gold for me."

After turning the matter over in his mind for some time, he thought that his best plan would be to make a show of turning fisherman and collector of shells. So he bought a few lobster-pots, and set them about among the rocks in the neighbourhood, and kept a collection of ornamental shells in his window for sale; which was indeed a very poor trade in those days, whatever it may be now.

But whenever he went down to the sea side he took with him a small tub, in which he used to put sand and water, and then shake it about for some time, so that the grains of gold, being heavier than the sand, would collect together at the bottom. He used afterwards to cover the gold up with limpets and periwinkle-shells, and walk home.

Three or four times a year he used to take a trip to London to sell his gold dust, and return to the island as rich as a Jew. The neighbours wondered how he made his lobster and shell trade turn out so profitably. However, nobody guessed at the fact.

Well, John Kann got richer and richer. At length he bethought himself of taking a wife to share his wealth and happiness. A rich man, as it is well known, has never much difficulty in procuring a helpmate, and John was a handsome man besides; so Betty Spooner shortly became Betty Kann. Betty, like the rest of her sex, was constantly harassed by that restless and troublesome demon curiosity. While there remained anything that she was not made fully acquainted with, she was quiet neither day nor night. She listened at keyholes, peeped into letters, cross-questioned everybody; sometimes pretending to know everything about an affair, by way of a trap to catch the unwary; or inventing a lie, by way of bait to fish

for the fact with. It is but justice to her memory to say, that she did not take all this trouble and tell so many falsehoods for any selfish or interested purpose. On the contrary, she appeared to be actuated purely by public-spirited and philanthropic motives. If there was any story or bit of scandal that she thought would tend to the amusement or instruction of the neighbourhood, she endeavoured to become possessed of the treasure solely that she might distribute it among the world at large. As for keeping a thing to herself, she never had been known to do so selfish a thing in her life.

All the neighbourhood felt convinced that Betty Spooner had been induced to marry John Kann chiefly for the purpose of discovering the secret how he contrived to get richer and richer, while every one round him remained poor. However, it is quite certain that she refused a much better match to marry John Kann. Her husband was for a long time proof against all cross-questioning, notwithstanding which she contrived, bit by bit, to poke the whole secret out. But with great discretion, instead of making it known to all the neighbourhood, she only told it to three or four of her chief friends and gossips, under a promise of the strictest secrecy.

Notwithstanding all these precautions, when John Kann went to work a day or two afterwards, he found a number of persons there, busily washing the sand. They did indeed find a very few grains of gold at first starting; but ever since that time neither John Kann nor anybody else has thought it worth his while to wash the sand in Puckaster Cove.

Never marry a gossiping wife.

THE WITHERED ROSE.

I WOULD not give this wither'd flower
For all the garlands you could twine;

It makes me think of many an hour

When love, and hope, and youth were mine!
Its blushes, like my cheeks are dead;
But, oh! there lingers a perfume,

Like memory of pleasures fled,

That half revives its faded bloom!

This Rose was given me on the day
I first began to know love's power;
It was the fairest Rose of May-

Alas! it was an emblem flower!
So bright, so purely bright it seem'd,
I dreamt not that a canker lay
Within its breast:-had 1 but dream'd
Aright, I should not weep to-day!

I placed it in my bosom, near

The new-found heart, exchanged for mine;
The flower methought shed one cold tear,
Which chill'd awhile its burning shrine !

Day after day I saw it sink,

As Love took wing for newer bowers :
Alas! that there should be such link
'Twixt fickle hearts and fading flowers!

J. A. WADE.

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