QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3122, 19 February 1879, Page 4

QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES.

The late Duchess ot Gordon, says an English paper, taking an airing alone in her carriage, in a remote part of the Scottish Highlands, observed at some distance from tbe road a neat cottage surrounded by a garden. Her Grace pulled the checkstring, and asked the servants to go round with the carriage to where she desired them to stop, while she crossed the moor to pay the cottage a visit. The Duchess happened to wear a pelisse trimmed with gold lace, and her hat was ornamented with golden spangles. A girl about 12 years old, the only person in the cottage, was spinning at tbe •wheel and singing a merry strain. As soon as her eyes caught the figure of the Duchess approaching, the green dress, the shining appearance of tho hat, on which the sun shone, the singularity of such a visitant in so lonely a situation, all so worked On the imagination of tbe little girl that she verily believed the Queen of the Fairies had come to reveal to her some fearful mystery of fate.. In great terror she escaped to a back closet, where, through a small aperture, she could see without being seen. The supposed fairy qneen entered, surveyed the apartmentjyith a curious eye, and then, seeing tbe wheel, bethought herself of trying to spin. She gave the wheel several turns, but could not make a tolerable thread, though she twisted up all the carded wool she could find. As some compensation for any injury her awkwardness might have occasioned, Her Grace tied a crown piece in a handkerchief that lay upon the table, fixed it to a spoke of the wheel and departed. The girl could not summon courage to venture from her hiding-place before her father and sister came in, nor till some time after could they extract from her an explanation of- the extraordinary state of perturbation in which they found her. Their surprise was scarcely less than hers when they were informed that somebody, who could be no other than the queen of fairies, for she was all in green and gold, and shining bright as the sun, had come into the house, and seeing nobody there, had fallen to bewitching the wheel, which, as sure as fairies were fairies, would never go again. " And see," continued the young enthusiast, pointing to the handkerchief tied on the spoke, "some* thing which she has left." The father untied the handkerchief, and the sight of the sterling piece of coin which it contained soon dispelled from his mind all suspicion as to the terrestrial attributes of the lady who had been honoring his cottage with a visit. The women of the cottage, however, were of a very different opinion. With them the lady could be no other than tbe fairy queen, who must doubtless have come-to tell poor Isabel her fortune; the spoiled thread was a sign that the first days other life would be marked with disappointment and sorrow, and the crown piece tied in the handkerchief to tbe spoke of the wheel betokened that she would in the end arrive by honest industry to wealth and comfort. Harmless delusion! It lasted but for a day. Sunday came, and the appearance of the queen of the fairies in the same dress at church as the duchess of the manor, convinced even Isabel that she had been deceived.