Come our lovely lady nigh: So good-night, with lullaby. Weaving spiders, come not here; Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence! Beetles black, approach not near; Worm nor snail, do no offence; Philomel, with melody, Sing in our sweet lullaby, Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby; Come our lovely lady nigh: So good-night, with lullaby.” With this we, too, will bid good-night to our fairies; only saying, that, when Titania awoke, the monster, ass, was close beside her: he was singing with his ass-y voice; and Titania, rousing, said, "What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?" We must add also, that when Oberon and Puck had played all their mischievous pranks, and brought things to rights again, the former pitied his poor queen, seeing her decorating the "hairy temples" of her ass-lover with a "coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers," and he restored her to her senses. Then she went back to her husband, and they lived ever after lovingly and happily. Whether Nannine and Gianina and their cousins discovered all those fairy-doings of Oberon and his queen and their sportive troop in the pretty tangled wildwood where they played that summer, we cannot say; but they are the stories which the great Shakspeare has related of those elfin beings in his "Midsummer-Night's Dream." CHAPTER XXV. THE DREAM. DURING the warm days of that summer, one of the family became ill. Nannine and her sister had been, as usual in the afternoon, with their cousins; and when they returned home, towards evening, how sweetly did they go to the bedside and inquire what they could do! Gianina had her doll in her hand; for the days of dolls were not yet over: and with a bright and arch expression on her face, as if a happy thought had just occurred to her, she asked if she should not leave her doll there for company. Their friend was not very ill then; but, in a day or two, it became evident that it would be a long and serious illness, a fever in fact, and the house was to be kept quiet. The children were then all sent to stay with their dear aunt and cousins in the pretty cottage, where they remained the rest of the summer. The mind of a sick person usually, in the height of a fever, is filled with many and various fancies; and, in this case, some of those which occurred from time to time were so real, so life-like, that they made a strong impression, and were remembered after their friend was recovered, so that she wrote them down precisely as they had appeared to her, thinking that they might at some time be useful to other children. Being so real and true a story, as it were, seeming so like reality, we will, as we have it to copy from, add it to these little narratives. It is the following, and is called THE ANGEL-CHILD. A child, once, had been sent by her father abroad into the world, with only her own exertions to maintain her. Excepting some drops of sorrow when she thought of her father, and a pang of home-sickness now and then, she was, in the main, light-hearted and cheerful. She went regularly on with her work: and, besides doing that which was necessary for her support, she was earnest and diligent also to acquire what would improve and embellish her mind and character; so that her time was wholly employed. Thus she went on steadily and happily. At last, there seemed to be a change: perhaps her work had been too steady and close; or perhaps it had come to be too light for her, and did not occupy her sufficiently. But a strange uneasiness came over her. Her eye began to lose its brightness; her cheek became pale; the buoyant elasticity of her step was gone; outward things seemed no longer satisfying and substantial; a vague listlessness and dreaminess came over her; long hours began to pass sadly to her; and she mourned in bitterness of spirit, she could hardly tell why or wherefore. But through it all she had thought of her father, and wondered where |