Above, on a clear cloud which lightly passed over the plain, sat a little sprite, the favorite servant of the fairy queen, arranging her lady's ornaments. She took out of the casket a long string of costly pearls, a present from the ocean queen. Titania had ordered her to take great care of them, because they were her favorite ornaments. There are other pearls, but these, although tears, she does not weep; and they are only brought to light by the fisherman who wrenches them from her at the peril of his life. The little fairy, delighted in her occupation, held the string high in the air, thinking, perhaps, they would glitter more in the sunbeams; but these pearls are not like precious stones, which borrow their brilliancy from the world around them. The tear of the ocean incloses its lustre within itself, and sends forth radiance from within. Behind the fairy sat Puck, the wag who provokes men and sprites; and while the little creature rejoiced over her pearls, he cut the string and down they rolled, gliding over the clouds, and at length alighting on the earth. For a moment the little fairy sat paralyzed with consternation; then putting forth all her strength she flew after the falling treasure. Flying an unmeasured space between the earth and the clouds, and seeing the little balls roll glittering past her on all sides, she would have returned hopelessly, had she not remarked under her, in a green field, on the grass and flowers, a thousand lustrous pearls. She thought they were some of those she had lost, and began diligently to collect them into the casket she held in her hand. The box was nearly filled, when Titania's lovely servant remarked that they were not pearls, the tears of the ocean, but dew, the tears of the flowers. Still she went on seeking the lost treasure. Seeing tears hanging from a mother's eye, who bent over her dying child, she collected them--these were tears of love. Going on, she found many other weeping eyes; so many tears that I can not give names to them all. Ah, how many tears are shed on earth! Out of men's eyes spring a wondrous stream--_its_ source is the heart. Against this, pain, melancholy, repentance, and sometimes also joy, must knock, and then the stream flows. It is a powerful talisman; it has a most potent charm. That man's heart must be hard indeed when even a stranger's tears fail to move him.