“The Fairy paused, and then spoke sadly,—­

“’Alas, bright being, Ada is a girl of passionate and earnest feeling.  Thou couldst not be happiness to her.  Thou mightest, indeed, abstract her intellect in time from all things but itself; but the heart within her must first wither or die, and the death of a young heart is a terrible thing.  Pardon me, but Ada cannot be thine.’

“‘They call me Virtue,’ said the second spirit; ’when I fill a heart, that heart can live alone.  It wakes to life on seeing my shadow in the object it first loves; that object never realizes the form of which it bears the semblance, and then turns to me, the ideal, for its sole happiness.  I am associated with every thing pure and holy and true.  Where human spirits have drawn nighest to the Eternal, I have been there to hallow them; where the weak have suffered long without complaint, where the dying have to the last, last breath held one name dearer than all; where innocence hath stayed guilt, and darkest injuries been forgiven, there ever am I. Fairy, shall I dwell with Ada?’

“Still sadder were the accents of the guardian Fairy: 

“‘And is this human love?’ said she.  ’This would be no happiness to my child, who is a mortal and a woman, and who will yearn for a closer and a dearer thing than the love of goodness alone; erring creatures cannot love perfection as their daily food.  Beautiful spirit, thou art fitted for heaven, not earth, for an angel, but not for Ada.’

“Then spoke the third: 

“‘My name is Beauty,’ said she.  ’Men unite me to imagination and worship me.  Many have degraded me to the meanest things I own, because my very essence is passion; but they who know my true nature, unite me with everything divine and lovely in the world.  If I fill Ada’s heart when she loves, the very face of all things will change to her.  The flowing of a brook will be music, the singing of the summer birds ecstacy; the early morning, the dewy evening, will fill her with strange tenderness, for a light will be on all things-the light of her love; and she will learn what it is to stay her very heart’s beatings to catch the lightest step of the adored; to feel the hot blood rushing to her brow, when only he looks on her, the hand tremble, and the whole frame thrill with exquisite rapture, and meet with delicious tremor, the first look of love from a man.  The raptures of my first bliss were worth ages of misery; and, pressed to the bosom of the beloved, a human spirit feels it is indeed blessed.  Youth is mine, eternal youth and pleasure.  Fairy, Ada must be mine.’

“‘Thou seemest,’ said the Fairy, musingly, ’to be the most suited for mortals.  In thy words and emblems I see nothing but sensuality of the least material order.  And to all there seemeth, too, to be a time when one clasp of the hand that is loved is more than the comprehension of the grandest thought.  Beauty, I will give up my child to thee; and O, if thou canst not keep her happy, keep her pure till I return.  Guard her as thou wouldst the bloom of the rose leaf, which may not bear even a breath.’