From China
Once upon a time, high on a mountain-side, there was a place where many beautiful flowers grew, mostly Peonies and Camellias. A young man named Hwang, who wished to study all alone, built himself a little house near by.
One day he noticed from his window a lovely young girl dressed in white, wandering about among the flowers. He hastened out of the house to see who she was, but she ran behind a tall white Peony, and vanished.
Hwang was very much astonished, and sat down to watch. Soon the girl slipped from behind the white Peony, bringing another girl with her who was dressed in red. They wandered about hand in hand until they came near Hwang, when the girl in red gave a scream, and together the two ran back among the flowers, their robes and long sleeves fluttering in the wind and scenting all the air. Hwang dashed after them, but they had vanished completely.
That evening, as Hwang was sitting over his books, he was astonished to see the white girl walk into his little room. With tears in her eyes she seemed to be pleading with him to help her. Hwang tried to comfort her, but she did not speak. Then, sobbing bitterly, she suddenly vanished.
This appeared to Hwang as very strange. However, the next day a visitor came to the mountain, who, after wandering among the flowers, dug up the tall white Peony, and carried it off. Hwang then knew that the white girl was a Flower Fairy; and he became very sad because he had permitted the Peony to be carried away. Later he heard that the flower had lived only a few days. At this he wept, and, going to the place where the Peony had stood, watered the spot with his tears.
While he was weeping, the girl in red suddenly stood before him, wringing her hands, and wiping her eyes.
“Alas!” cried she, “that my dear sister should have been torn from my side! But the tears, Hwang, that you have shed, may be the means of restoring her to us!”
Having said this, the red girl disappeared. But that very night Hwang dreamed that she came to him, and seemed to implore him to help her, just as the white girl had done. In the morning he found that a new house was to be erected close by, and that the builder had given orders to cut down a beautiful tall red Camellia.
Hwang prevented the destruction of the flower; and that same evening, as he sat watching the Camellia, from behind its tall stem came the white girl herself, hand in hand with her red sister.
“Hwang,” said the red girl, “the King of the Flower Fairies, touched by your tears, has restored my white sister to us. But as she is now only the ghost of a flower, she must dwell forever in a white Peony, and you will never see her again.”
At these words Hwang caught hold of the white girl’s hand, but it melted away in his; and both the sisters vanished forever from his sight. In despair he looked wildly around him, and all that he saw was a tall white Peony and a beautiful red Camellia.
After that Hwang pined, and fell ill, and died. He was buried at his own request, by the side of the white Peony; and before very long another white Peony grew up very straight and tall on Hwang’s grave; so that the two flowers stood lovingly side by side.