Gazing at her, Randalin's admiration mounted to wistfulness. "Were I like
that, I should be sure of his feeling toward me," she sighed.
Certainly, as she looked to-day sitting under the towering trees, it was easy
to understand why the King's wife had been named "the gift of the elves."
Every lovely thing in Nature had been robbed to make her, and only fairy
fingers could have woven the sun's gold into such tresses, or made such eyes
from a scrap of June sky and a spark of opal fire. From the crown of her
jewelled hair to the toe of her little red shoe, there was not one line
misplaced, one curve forgotten, while her motions were as graceful as blowing
willows.
When the pair came toward her over the carpet of leather-hued leaves, she put
out a white hand in beckoning. "Come here, my Valkyria, and let me try if I
can make you look still more like a gay bird from over the East Sea."
"You have made me look a very splendid bird, lady," Randalin said gratefully,
as she knelt to receive the woodland crown.
Elfgiva patted the brown cheeks in acknowledgment, and also in delight at the
effect of her handiwork. "You are an honor to my art. Do you know that the
night before you came to me I dreamed I held a burning candle in my hand, and
that is known by everybody to be a sign of good. A hundred plans are in my
mind against the time that this peace shall be over, and we are obliged to
return to that loathful house where we suffer so much with dulness that the
quarrels of my little brats are the only excitement we have.
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