And under all the music, whether grave or gay, there went a strain of
grief, sometimes almost harsh and sometimes scarcely heard, and as the
fairies listened to it they grew pale at the thought that now they
were to go away from all that they had known, to find something which
they did not know. While they were thinking of this the music changed
again. It was a soft murmur, like the sound of the sea that is kept
forever in a sea-shell. Then it grew loud and rough, with the rush of
winds and the crash of waves. The fairies were filled with fright, and
before they knew that they were afraid, the music was singing a song
of hope, and then, all at once, it grew as merry as if there had never
been a sad thought in the world.
For a moment the fairies listened to it and all their feet began to
stir restlessly on the floor. One of the fairy men caught the hand of
a fairy girl--a fairy girl with cheeks like the tiny petals in the
heart of a rose, with a white gown like a mist, and hair like fine
sunbeams falling on the mist; he threw his arm about her waist, and
they danced away down the hall.
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