among the grass. Susan was crying bitterly, and their guide kept scolding her, and Daisy heard the wolves growl in their dens.

She had heard of great funerals, where there were carriages and nodding plumes, and heavy velvet palls, and bells tolling mournfully; but Daisy thought it was because her father had been such a good man, that his funeral was so much grander.

She knew that all about his grave, and on, on, farther than eye could see, the great forest trees were bending and nodding like black plumes, and sounds like groans and sighs came from them as they dashed together in the wind; the lightning was his funeral torch; and the thunder tolled, instead of bells, at Peter's grave; and the black clouds swept on like a train of mourners; and the great, quick drops of rain made it seem as if all the sky were weeping tears of pity for the little girl.

Ah, and Daisy could not see how the dreadful old woman only seemed such, and was, in truth, a good and gentle fairy, who meant still to watch over the little orphan with tender care, as she had always done; whose soft, white wings, even now, were spread above, to shelter her from the cold rain and wind, and whose kind heart was full of pity for that little aching heart of hers.

You and I, and all the people we know, walk through the world with this same strange fairy; who seems to frown, and scold, and force us on through cruel storms, and yet who is really smiling upon us, and shielding our shrinking forms with tender care, and leading us gently home.

Have you thought yet what can be the fairy's name?

CHAPTER VIII.

DAISY'S MISSION.

No sooner had Daisy stepped inside of her mother's door, than there came such a crash of thunder as she had never heard; and the little house shook as if it must surely fall.

The old trees ground their boughs together, and, blown by the wind, the night birds dashed with their wet wings against the door; the screech owl hooted, for the young were washed out of her nest; and the rain leaked under Susan's door sill, ran across the floor, and put out the little fire of brushwood which was burning on the hearth.

And Daisy thought of her father, out alone in this fearful night, and how the cold rain must be dripping into his grave.

She peeped through the window. The sharp, jagged lightning made the sky look as if it were shattering like a dome of glass. She wondered if that lightning might not be the light of heaven she had heard about, and whether, if the sky should really fall, heaven and earth would be one place, and by taking a long, long journey, she could find her father, and live with him. And she thought that, for the sake of having him to take her by the hand again, she would walk to the end of a hundred worlds.

Then the sky seemed to Daisy like a great black bell; and the thunder was the tongue of it that tolled so dismally over her father's grave.

She was startled by a bony hand laid upon her shoulder, and looking up, heard the old woman say in her sharp, shrill voice, "Come, little girl! don't you know I am hungry after all this work? Fly round, and get me something to eat."

And when Daisy noticed her poor, starved face, she wondered that she had not thought to offer her some food.

So she went to the closet,—the same one which poor Peter had shown to his wife with so much pride,—and pointed to bread and a dish of milk,—for the shelves were so high that Daisy could not reach them,—and drew her mother's easy chair into the dryest place she could find, and begged the dame to seat herself.

She did not wait to be asked twice, but hobbled into the chair, and, to Daisy's wonder, ate all the bread at a mouthful, and drank the milk at a swallow, and then, looking as hungry as ever, asked for more.

So the little girl brought meat, and then some meal, and some dried fruit, and even cracked nuts; but the more she brought, the more the fairy wanted.

If Daisy had feared any thing, she would have trembled when, at last, the old dame fixed her glittering eyes upon her, and began to talk.

"Couldn't you do any better, Daisy, than this," she said, "for your mother's friend and yours? Are you not ashamed, when I am so hungry and tired, to give me such mean food?"

"I am sorry, if you do not like it," said Daisy; "it is the best we ever have."

"Don't tell me that," and the dame began to look angry. "Do you call it good food that leaves me thin as I was before, and as hungry, and my clothes as ragged, and does not rest or soothe my poor old aching bones?"

"If you wait till mother has done crying, she can make a drink out of herbs that will stop the aching—I am sure of that," said Daisy, looking up in the fairy's face.

"But I want it now; and, O, I am so cold! and she will cry all night. Do, Daisy, find me something else to eat."

The poor old woman shivered as she spoke, and tears came into her eyes.

"If it were daytime, I could find you berries and nuts out doors, for mother says I have sharp eyes."

"Have you—have you? And could you find my hut? There is a beautiful loaf of bread and a flask of medicine on the table. O, dear! this dreadful pain again!" and the ugly face grew uglier, as its wrinkles seemed all knotting up with agony.

"I am almost sure I could find it, and I am so sorry your bones ache; pray, let me try."

"What! go out into the dreadful night, with the owls, and wolves, and snakes, and with bats flapping their wings in your face, and the thunder rolling and rumbling overhead?"

"None of these things ever hurt me, and I don't believe they will now. May I try?"

"Just listen to the wind and rain, and see the lightning cut through the darkness like a sword; and think, Daisy, if you should see your father, just as he lay in the wood, with his head all crushed."

"My father has gone to heaven," said the little girl; "that is only his body out in the woods, just as that is his coat on the wall; and I shall see nothing except the nice loaf of bread and the medicine, and think only how they will cure your pain."

Without another word, the fairy took the lantern from her bosom, and fastening it to Daisy's, led her to the door, and pointed out into the black night.

"Who could see to hurt me, when it is so dark!" the little girl exclaimed. "Now, tell me which way I shall turn, and see if I am not back soon."

"Walk only where the light of the lantern falls." She was saying more; but the wind slammed the door suddenly, and Daisy found herself alone.

CHAPTER IX.

FAIRY FOOD.

The lantern made a little pathway of light, sometimes leading straight forward, sometimes turning, running among thick bushes or over the rocks; and Daisy went bravely on, never minding the frightened birds that fluttered through her light, like moths, nor the sad sigh of the wind, nor the dripping trees.

She looked for pleasant things, instead of frightful ones; and let me whisper to you, that, with fairy help or without it, we always find, in this world, what we are looking for.

The mosses seemed like a green carpet for her feet, and the pebbles like shining jewels; and the little flowers looked up at her like friends, and seemed to say, "We are smaller and weaker than you are, Daisy; but we stay out here every night, and nothing harms us."

And the