She, poor girl, was, like the animals, blessed with ignorance of everything beyond the hour; and soon she woke her father from his dire reverie with a cry of delight.
"Oh, what's they ?" said she, and beamed with pleasure.

Hope followed the direction of her blue eyes, open to their full extent; and lo! there was a little fleet of swans coming round a bend of the river.

Hope told her all about the royal birds, and that they belonged to sovereigns in one district, to cities in another.

Meantime the fair birds sailed on, and passed stately, arching their snowy necks.

Grace gloated on them, and for a day or two her discourse was of swans.
At last, when very near the goal, misfortunes multiplied.