I have said that Aster became every day more obstinate and perverse. Sometimes Eva thought that the strange flower, like a dragon-fly, which he had picked, and which he said stung him, had changed him, and that was the reason why he tried to annoy her in every possible way. He knew how uneasy she was when he was not with her; yet, knowing this, it was his greatest delight to hide himself behind some large stone, and after she had looked for him for a long time without finding him, afraid that his enemies had carried him off, he would jump out upon her with a loud mocking cry; he would pull her hair, he would try to soil her white dress, by throwing mud and dirt upon it, to make it, as he said, like his own, which was all stained and soiled, and then, when he found that he could not discolor its whiteness, he would throw himself down on the ground, and kick and scream, and tell Eva that he hated her, and that he wished THEY would come and carry her away. One day, when Aster had been worse than ever, and the way had been stonier and harder than it had ever been before, Eva began to think that it was of no use to go on, or to look for the flower lost so long ago by the imp-like boy, whose powers of annoying her seemed to increase as he grew smaller with the moon. She sat down upon one of the rough stones, and great tears gathered in her eyes. And as, one by one, they rolled down her cheeks and fell to the ground, everything around her seemed to grow vague and dim; and at her feet, just where the tear-drops fell, there came a bed of round green leaves, under whose shelter bloomed and nodded a multitude of tiny purple flowers; violets, whose sweet fragrance, rising, made a misty cloud, through which Eva caught faint glimpses of a pond, and a house near it, and then the house seemed to change into a cosy parlor. And by the window of this parlor a lady was sitting sewing, and rocking a cradle with her foot, and singing to a baby boy who was kicking and crowing in the cradle; and then the child heard her mother’s voice calling, softly, “Eva, Eva!” But before these memories came fully back, Aster came up, and angrily crushed and trampled the sweet violets under his feet; and as he did so the cloud and its pictures disappeared, and Eva forgot them; only she was very sorry for the dear little flowers that Aster had killed. Poor little flowers, which tried to do her good! For it seemed to her that with their last breath of perfume there came a low voice, which whispered. “Beware of the stones,”--and that was all. And then she asked Aster why he had destroyed the harmless flowers, which had only come to warn them. “They only came to do me harm,” Aster said, angrily. “They would have taken you away from me, and I should never have seen you again. You shall not go away from me yet, for I can never get home without you; after I have done with you, why, then you may go.” “Where?” Eva asked, pained at this selfish speech.