Among these simple people there is an ancient dame, who was old when the oldest villager first knew her, and she has lived through all the known generations of men. Her whole life has been a continual exercise of the best offices among the people; she has been nurse and doctress, friend and counselor, by turns, to the whole community, and they repay her with the love and veneration which her goodness and wisdom command. She is now apparently in the decrepitude of extreme age, but the frame only assumes the marks of age—the mind is as young and the affections as fresh as they were “a hundred years ago.” She is the “Fairy of the Oak,”—the youngest at the coronation scene, and the tutelary spirit of the enchanted family. Ever since the hour of their evil fortunes she has inhabited a human form, performing the charitable offices of ordinary life and mitigating its incident evils; but, especially she has been cultivating whatever of virtuous enterprise and aspiration appeared among the youth from generation to generation, directing it into the best service and endeavoring by it the deliverance of the imprisoned spirits under her charge. Patiently and lovingly she has striven, earnestly and anxiously she has watched, every promise of a deliverance that the race from age to age produced. Patriarch, prophet, apostle and philanthropist, has each in his degree done his own good work, and the world has been the better that they lived; each has added another assurance of the ultimate success, but themselves “have died without the sight.” Her own powers, and those of her auxiliaries, are vast and supernatural, indeed, but the champion age of human redemption must be human, and she can but inspire, direct, sustain and guard the mighty effort. Now, a young Christian Knight “the Knight of the Lion,” famous for deeds of valor in Holy Land, gives promise of the great achievement to the quick perception of the Guardian Spirit. She has aroused his enthusiasm and sustained his zeal, disciplining him by trial after trial, and training him from triumph to triumph, for still greater deeds, which take continually more definite shape and more attractive forms in the dreams and reveries which she inspires, until he has grown familiar with the vision and conscious of its supernatural suggestion, and she is able at last to intimate the duty and the trial which invite him by songs in the air addressed to his waking ear. “The enchanted maiden sleeps——in vain To hope redress from other arm, Foul magic forged the mighty chain, Honor and love will brake the charm. * * * * * Dread perils shall thy path surround, Wild horrors ranged in full array, Courage shall take the vantage ground, Bright virtue turn dark night to day.”