The Magician's Show Box, and Other StoriesTappan, Caroline Sturgis
Science
The Magician's Show Box, and Other Stories
Tappan, Caroline Sturgis
Children's stories; Fairy tales
We all dined at the same marble table, served by the same invisible
hands; but the fruits were juicy as well as fair to see, and the water
had become fragrant wine, and there was no silence now, but
conversation like the most enchanting fairy tales. After dinner we
went to the lady's mirrored room. The fire was not still, and
coldly brilliant, but burned with a motion like that of a
fountain--self-contained. And yet I like better our wood fire at home.
It is so pleasant to put on fresh sticks, and rake open the coals! But it
was splendid to see it burning in a hundred mirrors, where all the gay
and stately figures were reflected like sparkling light, as they
danced around the room in swift circles. Yes, and the lady also
danced. My rosy bird sat on the old cabinet and sang his sweetest
song, and above all, in the height of the lofty room floated the angel
who was crowning the child with roses, and by her side was the happy
child.
It was early dawn when we sailed home across the lake. I lay in the
bottom of the boat, with my head upon my mother's lap--not asleep, I
believe--but listening to the water rippling against the boat, and
faintly recalling the beautiful figures I had been seeing all day, I
knew them all so well. But how different from the marble statues were
the eyes beaming with life, the lips that spoke, and the glowing
motions of living forms. O, yes, we shall often accept the lady
Intelletta's invitation to visit her lordly castle.
I brought away my drawings, and have been pinning them on the walls
this morning. Mother says they are very ornamental to the rooms, but
I shall soon draw better ones. The baby creeps along the floor to her
little footstool, and points to the robin-red-breast, then looks at me
and laughs.
Mary and I are so tired to-night that we are going to have some bowls
of bread and milk on the door step, and go to bed when baby does--at
seven o'clock. Will not that be pleasant?
To-morrow I shall go to the village post office to put in this
letter. I shall not write you any more now that I have mother and Mary
to talk with; and I should not have written to you at all after I left
the silent castle,--now no longer silent,--only I thought you might be
interested to hear about my return home. I shall enclose all I have
written in one large envelope, sealed with a winged head; and I think
it will reach some of you, for I shall direct it “To all the Children
in the wide World,”--care of the South Wind.
VENUS'S DOVE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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