Tell me a Story

Chapter Two.

The Reel Fairies.

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

Louisa was a little girl of eight years old. That is to say, she was eight years old at the time I am going to tell you about. She was nothing particular to look at; she was small for her age, and her face was rather white, and her eyes were pretty much the same as other people’s eyes. Her hair was dark brown, but it was not even curly. It was quite straight-down hair, and it was cut short, not quite so short as little boys’ hair is cut now-a-days, but not very much longer. Many little girls had quite short hair at that time, but still there was something about Louisa’s that made its shortness remarkable, if anything about her could have been remarkable! It was so very smooth and soft, and fitted into her head so closely that it gave her a small, soft look, not unlike a mouse. On the whole, I cannot describe her better than by saying she was rather like a mouse, or like what you could fancy a mouse would be if it were turned into a little girl.

Louisa was not shy, but she was timid and not fond of putting herself forward; and in consequence of this, as well as from her not being at all what is called a “showy” child, she received very little notice from strangers, or indeed from many who knew her pretty well. People thought her a quiet, well-behaved little thing, and then thought no more about her. Louisa understood this in her own way, and sometimes it hurt her. She was not so unobservant as she seemed; and there were times when she would have very much liked a little more of the caressing, and even admiration, which she now and then saw lavished on other children; for though she was sensible in some ways, in others she was not wiser than most little people.

Her home was not in the country: it was in a street, in a large and rather smoky town. The house in which she lived was not a very pretty one; but, on the whole, it was nice and comfortable, and Louisa was generally very well pleased with it, except now and then, when she got little fits of wishing she lived in some very beautiful palace sort of house, with splendid rooms, and grand staircases, and gardens, and fountains, and I don’t know all what—just the same sort of little fits as she sometimes had of wishing to be very pretty, and to have lovely dresses, and to be admired and noticed by every one who saw her. She never told any one of these wishes of hers; perhaps if she had it would have been better, but it was not often that she could have found any one to listen to and understand her; and so she just kept them to herself.

There was one person who, I think, could have understood her, and that was her mother. But she was often busy, and when not busy, often tired, for she had a great deal to do, and several other little children besides Louisa to take care of. There were two brothers who came nearest Louisa in age, one older and one younger, and two or three mites of children smaller still. The brothers went to school, and were so much interested in the things “little boys are made of,” that they were apt to be rather contemptuous to Louisa because she was a girl, and the wee children in the nursery were too wee to think of anything but their own tiny pleasures and troubles. So you can understand that though she had really everything a little girl could wish for, Louisa was sometimes rather lonely and at a loss for companions, and this led to her making friends in a very odd way indeed. If you guessed for a whole year I do not think you would ever guess whom, or I should say what , she chose for her friends. Indeed, I fear that when I tell you you will hardly believe me; you will think I am “story-telling” indeed. Listen—it was not her doll, nor a pet dog, nor even a favourite pussy-cat—it was, they were rather, the reels in her mother’s workbox .

Can you believe it? It is quite, quite true. I am not “making up” at all, and I will tell you how it came about. There was one part of the day, I daresay it was the hour that the nursery children were asleep, when it was convenient for Louisa to be sent down-stairs to sit beside her mother in the drawing-room, with many injunctions to be quiet. Her mother was generally writing or “doing accounts” at that time, and not at leisure to attend to her little girl; but when Louisa appeared at the door she would look up and say with a smile, “Well, dear, and what will you have to amuse yourself with to-day?” At first Louisa used to consider for a minute, and nearly every day she would make a different request.

“A piece of paper and a pencil to write,” she would say on Monday perhaps, and on Tuesday it would be “The box with the chess, please,” and on Wednesday something else. But after a while her answer came to be always the same—“Your big workbox to tidy, please, mamma.”

Mamma smiled at the great need of tidying that had come over her big workbox, but she knew she could certainly trust Louisa not to un -tidy it, so she used just to push it across the table to her without speaking, and then for an hour at least nothing more was heard of Louisa. She sat quite still, fully as absorbed in her occupation as her mother was in hers, till at last the well-known tap at the door would bring her back from dream-land.

“Miss Louisa, your dinner is waiting,” or “Miss Louisa, the little ones are quite ready to go out;” and, with a deep sigh, the workbox would be closed and the little girl would obey the unwelcome summons.

And next day, and the day after, and a great many days after that, it was always the same thing. But nobody knew anything about these queer friends of hers, except Louisa herself.

There were several families of them, and their names were as original as themselves. There were the Browns, reels of brown wood wound with white cotton; as far as I remember there were a Mr and Mrs Brown and three children; the Browns were supposed to be quiet, respectable people, who lived in a large house in the country, but had nothing particularly romantic or exciting about them. There were the De Cordays, so named from the conspicuous mark of “three cord” which they bore. They were a set of handsome bone, or, as Louisa called it, ivory reels, and she added the “De” to their name to make it sound grander. There were two pretty little reels of fine China silk, whom she distinguished as the Chinese Princesses. Blanche and Rose were their first names, to suit the colours they bore, for Louisa, you see, had learnt a little French already; and there were some larger silk reels, whom she called the “Lords and Ladies Flossy.” Altogether there were between twenty and thirty personages in the workbox community, and the adventures they had, the elegance and luxury in which they lived, the wonderful stories they told each other, would fill more pages than I have time to write, or than you, kind little girls that you are, would have patience to read. I must hasten on to tell you how it came to pass that this queer fancy of Louisa’s was discovered by other people.

One morning when she was sitting quietly, as usual, beside her mother, a friend of Mrs no, we need not tell her name, I should like you best just to think of her as Louisa’s mamma—well then, a friend of Louisa’s mamma’s came to call. She was a lady who lived in the country several miles away from Smokytown, but she was very fond of Louisa’s mamma, and whenever she had to come to Smokytown to shop, or anything of that kind, perhaps to take her little girl (for she too had a little girl as you shall hear) to the dentist’s, she always came early to call on her friend. Louisa’s mamma jumped up at once, when the servant threw open the door and announced the lady by name, and then they kissed each other, and then Louisa’s mamma stooped down and kissed the lady’s little girl who was standing beside her, but Louisa sat so quietly at her corner of the table, that for a minute or two no one noticed her. She was just thinking if she could manage to creep down under the table and slip away out of the room without being seen, when her mamma called her.

“Louisa, my dear,” she said, “come here and speak to Mrs Gordon and to Frances. You remember Frances, don’t you, dear?”

Louisa got down slowly off her chair and came to her mamma. She stood looking at Frances for a minute or two without speaking.

“Don’t you remember Frances?” said her mamma again.

“No,” said Louisa at last, “I don’t think I do.” Then she turned away as if she were going back to her place at the table. Her mamma looked vexed.

“Poor little thing,” said Mrs Gordon, “she is only rather shy. Frances, you must make friends with her.”

“Louisa, I am not pleased with you,” said her mamma gravely, and then she went on talking to Mrs Gordon.

Frances followed Louisa to the table, where all the reels were arranged in order. There was a grand feast going on among them that day: one of the Chinese princesses was to be married to one of the Lords Flossy, and Louisa had been smartening them up for the occasion. But she did not want to tell Frances about it.

“I am only playing with mamma’s workbox things,” she said, looking up at Frances, and wishing she had not come. She had taken a dislike to Frances, and the reason was not a very nice one—she was envious of her because she had such a pretty face and was very beautifully dressed. She had long curls of bright light hair, and large blue eyes, and she had a purple velvet coat trimmed with fur, and a sweet little bonnet with rosebuds in the cap, and Louisa’s mamma would never let her have rosebuds or any flowers in her bonnets. To Louisa’s eyes she looked almost as beautiful as a fairy princess, but the thought vexed her.

“Playing with your mamma’s workbox things,” said Frances, “how very funny! You poor little thing, have you got nothing else to play with?”

She spoke as if she were several years older than Louisa, and this made Louisa still more vexed.

“Yes,” she answered, “of course I have got other things, but I like these. You can’t understand.” Frances smiled. “How funny you are!” she said again, “but never mind. Let us talk of something nice. Perhaps you would like to hear what things I have got to play with. I have a room all for myself, filled with toys. I have got a large doll-house, as tall as myself, with eight rooms; and I have sixteen dolls of different kinds. They were mostly birthday presents. But I am getting too big to care for them now. My birthday was last week. What do you think papa gave me? Something so beautiful that I had wanted for such a long time. I don’t think you could guess.”

In spite of herself Louisa was becoming interested. “I don’t know, I’m sure,” she said; “perhaps it was a book full of stories.”

Frances shook her head. “O no,” she answered, “it wasn’t. That would be nothing particular, and my present was something particular, very particular indeed. Well, you can’t guess, so I’ll tell you—it was a Princess’s dress; a real dress you know; a dress that I can put on and wear.”

“A Princess’s dress!” repeated Louisa, opening her eyes.

“Yes, to be sure,” said Frances. “I call it a Princess’s dress, because it is copied from one the Princess Fair Star wore at the pantomime last Christmas. It was there I saw it, and I have teased papa ever since till he got it for me. And it is so beautiful; quite beautiful enough for a queen for that matter. My papa often calls me his queen, sometimes he says his golden-haired queen. Does yours?”

“No,” said Louisa sadly; “my papa sometimes calls me his pet, and sometimes he calls me ‘old woman,’ but he never says I am his queen. I suppose I am not pretty enough.”

“I don’t know,” said Frances, consideringly, “I don’t think you’re ugly exactly. Perhaps if you asked your papa to get you a Princess’s dress—”

“He wouldn’t,” said Louisa decidedly, “I know he wouldn’t. It would not be the least use asking him. Tell me more about yours—what is it like, and does it make you feel like a real princess when you have it on?”

“I suppose it makes me look like one,” replied Frances complacently, “and as for feeling, why one can always fancy, you know.”

“Fancying isn’t enough,” said Louisa. “I know I should dreadfully like to be a princess or a queen. It is the first thing I would ask a fairy. Perhaps you don’t wish it so much because every one pets you so, and thinks you so pretty. Has your dress got silver and gold on it?”

“O yes, at least it has silver—silver spots,” began Frances eagerly, but just then her mamma turned to tell her that they must go. “The little people have made friends very quickly after all, you see,” she said to Louisa’s mamma. “Some day you must really bring Louisa to see Frances—it has been such an old promise.”

“It is not often I can leave home for a whole day,” said Louisa’s mamma; “and then, dear, you must remember not having a carriage makes a difference.”

Louisa’s cheeks grew red. She felt very vexed with her mamma for telling Mrs Gordon they had no carriage, but of course she did not venture to say anything, so no one noticed her. She was not sorry when Mrs Gordon and Frances said good-bye and went away.

That same evening, a little before bed-time, Louisa happened to be again in the drawing-room alone with her mother.

“Louisa,” said her mother, who was sewing at the table, “you did not leave my workbox as neat as usual this morning. I suppose it was because you were interrupted by Frances Gordon. Come here, dear, and take the box and put it on a chair near the fire and arrange it rightly. Here is a whole collection of reels rolling about. Put them all in their places.”

Louisa did as she was told, but without speaking. Indeed she had been very silent all day, but her mother had been occupied with other things and had not noticed her particularly. Louisa quietly put the reels into their places, giving the most comfortable corners to her favourites as usual, and huddling some of the others together rather unceremoniously. Then she sat down on the hearth-rug, and began to think of what Frances Gordon had said to her, and to wish all sorts of not very wise things. She felt herself at last growing drowsy, so she leant her little round head on the chair beside her, and was almost asleep, when she heard her mother say, “Louisa, my dear, you are getting sleepy, you must really go to bed.”

“Yes, mamma,” she said, or intended to say, but the words sounded faint and dreamlike, and before they were fully pronounced she was fairly asleep!

She remembered nothing more for what seemed a very long time—then to her surprise she found herself already undressed and in her own little bed! “Nurse must have carried me upstairs and undressed me,” she thought, and she opened her eyes very wide to see if it was still the middle of the night. No, surely it could not be; the room was quite light, yet where was the light coming from? It was not coming in at the window—there was no window to be seen; the curtains were drawn across, and no tiny chink even was visible; there was no lamp or candle in the room,—the light was simply there, but where it came from Louisa could not discover. She got tired of wondering about it at last, and was composing herself to sleep again, when suddenly a small but very clear voice called her by name. “Louisa, Louisa,” it said. She did not feel at all frightened. She half raised herself in bed and exclaimed, “Who is speaking to me? what do you want?”

“Louisa, Louisa,” the voice repeated, “would you like to be a queen?”

“Very much indeed, thank you,” Louisa replied promptly.

“Then rub your eyes and look about you,” said the voice.

Louisa rubbed her eyes and looked about her to some purpose, for what do you think she saw? All the white counterpane of her little bed was covered with tiny figures, of various sizes, from one inch to three or four in height. They were hopping, and dancing, and twirling themselves about in every imaginable way, like nothing anybody ever saw before, or since, or ever will again.

“Fairies!” thought Louisa at once, and without any feeling of overwhelming surprise, for, like most children, she had always been hoping, and indeed half expecting, that some day an adventure of this kind would fall to her share.

“Yes, fairies,” said the same voice as before, which seemed to hear her thoughts as distinctly as if she had spoken them; “but what kind of fairies? Look at us again, Louisa.”

Louisa opened her eyes wider and stared harder. There were all kinds of fairies, gentlemen and ladies, little and big; but as she looked she saw that every one of them, without exception, wore a curious sort of round stiff jacket, more like a little barrel than anything else. It gave them a queer high-shouldered look, very like the little figures of Noah and his family in toy arks; but as Louisa was staring at them the mystery was explained. A big, rather clumsy-looking gentleman fairy, stopped for a moment in his gymnastics, and Louisa read on the ledge round his shoulders the familiar words “Clarke and Company’s best six-cord, extra quality, Number 12.”

“I know,” she cried, clapping her hands; “you’re mamma’s reels!”

At these words a sensation ran through the company; they all stood stock-still, and Louisa began to feel a little afraid.

“She says,” exclaimed the voice, “she says we’re her mamma’s reels !”

There fell a dead silence; Louisa expected to be sentenced to undergo capital punishment on the spot. “It’s too bad,” she said to herself, “it’s too bad; they asked me to guess who they were.”

“She says,” continued the voice, “she says ‘it’s too bad.’ What is too bad? My friends, let the deputation stand forward.”

Instantly about a dozen fairies separated themselves from the others and advanced, slowly marching two and two up the counterpane, till having made their way across the various hills and valleys formed by Louisa’s little figure under the bedclothes, they drew up just in front of her nose. Foremost of the deputation she recognised, the one clad in pink satin, the other in glistening white, her two favourites the Princesses Blanche and Rose.

“Beautiful Louisa,” said the deputation, all speaking at once, “we have come to ask you to be our queen.”

“Thank you,” said Louisa, not knowing what else to say.

“She consents!” exclaimed the deputation, “let the royal chariot appear.”

Thereupon there suddenly started up in the middle of the bed, as large as life, but no larger, her mamma’s big workbox! The fairies all clambered on to it with a rush, and hung upon it in every direction, like bees on a hive, or firemen on a fire-engine; and no sooner were they all mounted than the workbox slowly glided along till it was close to Louisa’s face.

“Will your majesty please to get in?” said one of the fairies, “Clarke’s Number 12, extra quality,” I think it was.

“How can I?” said Louisa piteously, “how can I? I’m far too big. How can I get into a workbox?”

“Please to rub your eyes and try,” said the big fairy, “right foot foremost, if you please.”

Louisa rubbed her eyes, and pulling her right foot out from under the clothes, stepped on to the workbox.

To her surprise, or rather not to her surprise, everything seemed to come quite naturally, she found that she was not at all too big, and she settled herself in the place the fairies had kept for her, the nice little division lined with satin, in which her mamma’s thimble and emery cushion always lay. It was pretty comfortable, only rather hard, but Louisa had no time to think about that, for no sooner was she seated than off flew the workbox, that is to say the royal chariot, away, away, Louisa knew not where, and felt too giddy to try to think. It stopped at last as suddenly as it had started, and quick as thought all the fairies jumped down. Louisa followed them more deliberately. She found herself in a great shining hall, the walls seemed to be of looking-glass, but when she observed them more closely she found they were made of innumerable needles, all fastened together in some wonderful fairy fashion, which she had not time to examine, for just then the Chinese princesses approached her, carrying between them a glistening dress, which they begged her to put on. They were quite as tall as she by-the-by, so she allowed them to dress her, and then examined herself with great satisfaction in the looking-glass walls. The dress was lovely, of that there was no doubt; it was just such a one, curiously enough, as Frances Gordon had described; the only drawback was her short hair, which certainly did not add to her regal appearance.

“It won’t show so much when your majesty has the crown on,” said the Chinese princesses, answering as before to Louisa’s unspoken thoughts. Then some gentlemen fairies appeared with the crown, which fitted exactly, only it felt rather heavy. But it would never do for a queen to complain, even in thought, of so trifling a matter, so with great dignity Louisa ascended the throne which stood at one end of the hall, and sat down upon it to see what would come next.

The Fairies came next. One after the other, by dozens, and scores, and hundreds, they passed before her, each as he passed making the humblest of obeisances, as if to the great Mogul himself. It was very fine indeed, but after a while Louisa began to get rather tired of it, and though the throne was very grand to look at, it too felt rather hard, and the crown grew decidedly heavier.

“I think I’d like to come down for a little,” she said to some of the ladies and gentlemen beside her, but they took no notice. “I’d like to get down for a little and to take off my crown—it’s hurting my head, and this spangly dress is so cold,” she continued. Still the fairies took no notice.

“Don’t you hear what I say?” she exclaimed again, getting angry; “what’s the use of being a queen if you won’t answer me?”

Then at last some of the fairies standing beside the throne appeared to hear what she was saying.

“Her majesty wishes to take a little exercise,” said “Clarke’s Number 12,” and immediately the words were repeated in a sort of confusing buzz all round the hall. “Her majesty wishes to take a little exercise”—“her majesty wishes to take a little exercise,” till Louisa could have shaken them all heartily, she felt so provoked. Then suddenly the throne began to squeak and grunt (Louisa thought it was going to talk about her taking exercise next), and after it had given vent to all manner of unearthly sounds it jerked itself up, first on one side and then on the other, like a very rheumatic old woman, and at last slowly moved away. None of the fairies were pushing it, that was plain; and at first Louisa was too much occupied in wondering what made it move, to find fault with the mode of exercise permitted to her. The throne rolled slowly along, all round the hall, and wherever it appeared a crowd of fairies scuttled away, all chattering the same words—“Her majesty is taking a little exercise,” till at last, with renewed jerks and grunts and groans, her queer conveyance settled itself again in its old place. As soon as it was still, Louisa tried to get down, but no sooner did she put one foot on the ground than a crowd of fairies respectfully lifted it up again on to the footstool. This happened two or three times, till Louisa’s patience was again exhausted.

“Get out of my way,” she exclaimed, “you horrid little things, get out of my way; I want to get down and run about.”

But the fairies took no notice of what she said, till for the third time she repeated it. Then they all spoke at once.

“Her majesty wants to take a little more exercise,” they buzzed in all directions, till Louisa was so completely out of patience that she burst into tears.

“I won’t stay to be your queen,” she said, “it’s not nice at all. I want to go home to my mamma. I want to go home to my mamma. I want to go home to my mamma.”

“We don’t know what mammas are,” said the fairies. “We haven’t anything of that kind here.”

“That’s a story,” said Louisa. “There—are mammas here. I’ve seen several. There’s Mrs Brown, and there’s Lady Flossy, and there’s—no, the Chinese princesses haven’t a mamma. But you see there are two among my mamma’s own reels in her workb—.”

But before she could finish the word the fairies all set up a terrific shout. “The word, the word,” they cried, “the word that no one must mention here. Hush! hush! hush!”

They all turned upon Louisa as if they were going to tear her to pieces. In her terror she uttered a piercing scream, and—woke.

She wasn’t in bed; where was she? Could she be in the workbox? Wherever she was it was quite dark and cold, and something was pressing against her head, and her legs were aching. Suddenly there came a flash of light. Some one had opened the door, and the light from the hall streamed in. The some one was Louisa’s mamma.

“Who is in here? Did I hear some one calling out?” she exclaimed anxiously.

Louisa was slowly recovering her wits. “It was me, mamma,” she answered; “I didn’t know where I was, and I was so frightened and I am so cold. Oh mamma!”

A flood of tears choked her.

“You poor child,” exclaimed her mamma, hurrying back to the hall to fetch a lamp, as she spoke, “why, you have fallen asleep on the hearth-rug, and the fire’s out; and my workbox—what is it doing here? Were you using it for a pillow?”

“No,” said Louisa, eyeing the workbox suspiciously, “it was on the chair, and the corner of it has hurt my head, mamma; it was pressing against it.” Her mamma lifted the box on to the table.

“Are they all in there, mamma?” whispered Louisa, timidly.

“All in where? All who? What are you speaking about, my dear?”

“The fairies—the reels I mean,” replied Louisa. “My dear, you are dreaming still,” said her mamma, laughing, but seeing that Louisa looked dissatisfied, “never mind, you shall tell me your dreams to-morrow. But just now you must really go to bed. It is nine o’clock—you have been two hours asleep. I went out of the room in a hurry, taking the lamp with me because it was not burning rightly, and then I heard baby crying—he is very cross to-night—and both nurse and I forgot about you. Now go, dear, and get well warmed at the nursery fire before you go to bed.”

Louisa trotted off. She had no more dreams that night, but when she woke the next morning, her poor little legs were still aching. She had caught cold the night before, there was no doubt, so her mamma, taking some blame to herself for her having fallen asleep on the floor, was particularly kind and indulgent to her. She brought her down to the drawing-room wrapped in a shawl, and established her comfortably in an arm-chair.

“What will you have to play with?” she asked. “Would you like my workbox?”

“I don’t know,” said Louisa, doubtfully. “Mamma,” she continued, after a moment’s silence, “can queens never do what they like?”

“Very often they can’t,” replied her mamma. “What makes you ask?”

“I dreamt I was a queen,” said Louisa.

“Did you? What country were you queen of?”

“I was queen of the reel fairies,” replied the child gravely. Her mother looked mystified “Tell me what you mean, dear,” she said. “Tell me all about it.”

So bit by bit Louisa explained the whole, and her mamma had for once a peep into that strange, fantastic, mysterious world, which we call a child’s imagination. She had a glimpse of something else too. She saw that her little girl was in danger of getting to live too much alone, was in need of sympathy and companionship.

“I think it was what Frances Gordon said that made me dream about being a queen,” she said.

“And do you still wish you were a queen?” said her mamma.

“No,” said Louisa.

“A princess then?”

“No,” she replied again. “But, mamma—”

“Well, dear?”

“I do wish sometimes that I was pretty, and that—that—I don’t know how to say it—that people made a fuss about me sometimes.”

Her mamma looked a little grave and a little sad; but still she smiled. She could not be angry—thought Louisa.

“Is it naughty, mamma?” she whispered.

“Naughty? No, dear; it is a wish most little girls have, I fancy—and big ones too. But some day you will understand how it might grow into a wrong feeling, and how on the other side a little of it may be useful to help good feelings. And till you understand better, dear, doesn’t it make you happy to know that to me you could not be dearer if you were the most beautiful little princess in the world.”

“As beautiful as Princess Fair Star, mamma?”

“Yes, or any other princess you can think of. I would rather have my little mouse of a girl than any of them.”

Louisa nestled closer to her mamma with great satisfaction. “I like you to call me your mouse, mamma; and do you know I almost think I like having a cold.”

Her mother laughed. “Am I making a little fuss about you? Is that what you like?”

Louisa laughed too.

“Do you think I should leave off playing with the reels, and making stories about them, mamma? Is it silly?”

“No, dear, not if it amuses you,” said her mother.

But though Louisa did not leave off playing with the reels altogether, she gradually came to find that she preferred other amusements. Her mother taught her several pretty kinds of work, and read aloud stories to her more often than formerly. And, somehow, Louisa never again cared quite as much for her old friends. She thought the Chinese princesses had grown rather “stuck-up” and affected, and she could not get over a strong suspicion that “Clarke’s Number 12” was very ready to be impertinent, if he could ever again get a chance.

Chapter Three.

Good-Night, Winny.

“Say not good-night—but, in some brighter clime,
Bid me good-morning!”

When I was a little girl I was called Meg. I do not mean to say that I have got a different name now that I am big, but my name is used differently. I am now called Margaret, or sometimes Madge, but never Meg. Indeed I do not wish ever to be called Meg, for a reason you will quite understand when you have heard my story. But perhaps I am wrong to call it a “story” at all, so I had better say at the beginning that what I have to tell you is only a sort of remembrance of something that happened to me when I was very little—of some one I loved more dearly, I think, than I can ever love any one again. And I fancy perhaps other little girls will like to hear it.

Well then, to begin again—long ago I used to be called Meg, and the person who first called me so was my sister Winny, who was not quite two years older than I. There were four of us then—four little sisters—Winny, and I, and Dolly, and Blanche, baby Blanche we used to call her. We lived in the country in a pretty house, which we were very fond of, particularly in the summer time, when the flowers were all out. Winny loved flowers more dearly than any one I ever knew, and she taught me to love them too. I never see one now without thinking of her and the things she used to say about them. I can see now, now that I am so much older, that Winny must have been a very clever little girl in some ways, not so much in learning lessons as in thinking things to herself, and understanding feelings and thoughts that children do not generally care about at all. She was very pretty too, I can remember her face so well. She had blue eyes and very long black eyelashes—our mamma used to teaze her sometimes, and say that she had what Irish people call “blue eyes put in with dirty fingers”—and pretty rosy cheeks, and a very white forehead. And her face always had a bright dancing look that I can remember best of all.

We learnt lessons together, and we slept together in two little beds side by side, and we did everything together, from eating our breakfast to dressing our dolls—and when one was away the other seemed only half alive. All our frocks and hats and jackets were exactly the same, and except that Winny was taller than I, we should never have known which was which of our things. I am sure Winny was a very good little girl, but when I try to remember all about her exactly, what seems to come back most to me is her being always so happy. She did not need to think much about being good and not naughty; everything seemed to come rightly to her of itself. She thought the world was a very pretty, nice place; and she loved all her friends, and she loved God most of all for giving them to her. She used to say she was sure Heaven would be a very happy place too, only she did so hope there would be plenty of flowers there, and she was disappointed because mamma said it did not tell in the Bible what kinds of flowers there would be. Almost the only thing which made her unhappy was about there being so many very poor people in the world. She used to talk about it very often and wonder why it was, and when she was very, very little, she cried because nurse would not let her give away her best velvet jacket to a poor little girl she saw on the road.

But though Winny was so sweet, and though we loved each other so, sometimes we did quarrel. Now and then it was quite little quarrels which were over directly, but once we had a bigger quarrel. Even now I do not like to remember it; and oh! how I do wish I could make other boys and girls feel as I do about quarrelling. Even little tiny squabbles seem to me to be sorrowful things, and then they so often grow into bigger ones. It was generally mostly my fault. I was peevish and cross sometimes, and Winny was never worse than just hasty and quick for a moment. She was always ready to make friends again, “to kiss ourselves to make the quarrel go away,” as our little sister Dolly used to say, almost before she could speak. And sometimes I was silly, and then it was right for Winny to find fault with me. My manners used occasionally to trouble her, for she was very particular about such things. One day I remember she was very vexed with me for something I said to a gentleman who was dining with our papa and mamma. He was a nice kind gentleman, and we liked him, only we did not think him pretty. Winny and I had fixed together that we did not think him pretty, only of course Winny never thought I would be so silly as to tell him so. We came down to dessert that evening—Winny sat beside papa, and I sat between Mr Merton and mamma, and after I had sat quite still, looking at him without speaking, I suddenly said,—I can’t think what made me—“Mr Merton, I don’t think you are at all pretty. Your hair goes straight down, and up again all of a sudden at the end, just like our old drake’s tail.”

Mr Merton laughed very much, and papa laughed, and mamma did too, though not so much. But Winny did not laugh at all. Her face got red, and she would not eat her raisins, but asked if she might keep them for Dolly, and she seemed quite unhappy. And when we had said good-night, and had gone upstairs, I could see how vexed she was. She was so vexed that she even gave me a little shake. “Meg,” she said, “I am so ashamed of you. I am really. How could you be so rude?”

I began to cry, and I said I did not mean to be rude; and I promised that I would never say things like that again; and then Winny forgave me; but I never forgot it. And once I remember, too, that she was vexed with me because I would not speak to a little girl who came to pay a visit to her grandfather, who lived at our grandfather’s lodge. Winny stopped to say good-morning to her, and to ask her if her friends at home were quite well; and the little girl curtseyed and looked so pleased. But I walked on, and when Winny called to me to stop I would not; and then, when she asked me what was the matter, I said I did not think we needed to speak to the little girl, she was quite a common child, and we were ladies. Winny was vexed with me then; she was too vexed to give me a little shake even. She did not speak for a minute, and then she said, very sadly, “Meg, I am sorry you don’t know better than that what being a lady means.”

I do know better now, I hope; but was it not strange that Winny always seemed to know better about these things? It came of itself to her, I think, because her heart was so kind and happy.

Winny was very fond of listening to stories, and of making them up and telling them to me; but she was not very fond of reading to herself. She liked writing best, and I liked reading. We used to say that when we were big girls, Winny should write all mamma’s letters for her, and I should read aloud to her when she was tired. How little we thought that time would never come! We were always talking about what we should do when we were big; but sometimes when we had been talking a long time, Winny would stop suddenly, and say, “Meg, growing big seems a dreadfully long way off. It almost tires me to think of it. What a great, great deal we shall have to learn before then, Meg!” I wonder what gave her that feeling.

Shall I tell you now about the worst quarrel we ever had? It was about Winny’s best doll. The doll’s name was “Poupée.” Of course I know now that that is the French for all dolls; but we were so little then we did not understand, and when our aunt’s French maid told us that “poupée” was the word for doll, we thought it a very pretty name, and somehow the doll was always called by it. Grandfather had given “Poupée” to Winny—I think he brought it from London for her—and I cannot tell you how proud she was of it. She did not play with it every day, only on holidays and treat-days; but every day she used to peep at “Poupée” in the drawer where she lay, and kiss her, and say how pretty she looked. One afternoon Winny was going out somewhere—I don’t remember exactly where; I daresay it was a drive with mamma—and I was not to go, and I was crying; and just as Winny was running down-stairs all ready dressed to go, she came back and whispered to me, “Meg, dear, don’t cry. It takes away all my pleasure to see you. Will you leave off crying and look happy if I let you have ‘Poupée’ to play with while I am out?”

I wiped away my tears in a minute, I was so pleased. Winny ran to “Poupée’s” drawer and got her out, and brought her to me. She kissed her as she put her into my arms, and she said to her, “My darling ‘Poupée,’ you are going to spend the afternoon with your aunt. You must be a very good little girl, and do exactly what she tells you.”

And then Winny said to me, “You will be very careful of her, won’t you, Meg?” and I promised, of course, that I would.

I did mean to be careful, and I really was; but for all that a sad accident happened. I had been very happy with “Poupée” all the afternoon, and I had made her a new apron with a piece of muslin nurse gave me, and some ribbon, which did nicely for bows; and I was carrying her along the passage to show nurse how pretty the apron looked, when the housemaid, who was coming along with a trayful of clean clothes from the wash in her arms, knocked against me, and “Poupée” was thrown down; and, terrible to tell, her dear, sweet little right foot was broken. I cannot tell you how sorry I was, and nurse was sorry too, and so was Jane; but all the sorrow would not mend the foot. I was sitting on the nursery floor, with “Poupée” in my lap, crying over her, as miserable as could be, when Winny rushed in, laden with parcels, in the highest spirits.

“O! I have had such a nice drive, and I have brought some buns and sponge-cakes for tea, and a toy donkey for Blanche. And has Poupée been good?” she exclaimed. But just then she caught sight of my face. “What is the matter, Meg? What have you done to my darling, beautiful Poupée? O Meg, Meg, you surely haven’t broken her?”

I was crying so I could hardly speak.

“O Winny!” I said, “I am so sorry.”

But Winny was too vexed to care just at first for anything I could say. “You naughty, naughty, unkind Meg,” she said, “I do believe you did it on purpose.”

I could not bear that. I thought it very hard indeed that she should say so, when any one could see how miserable I was. I did not answer her; I ran out of the nursery, and though Winny called to me to come back (for the moment she had said those words she was sorry for them), I would not listen to her. Nurse fetched me back soon, however, for it was tea-time, but I would not speak to Winny. We never had such a miserable tea; there we sat, two red-eyed, unhappy little girls, looking as if we did not love each other a bit. If mamma had come up to the nursery she would have put it all right—she did put Poupée’s foot right the very next day, she mended it so nicely with diamond cement, that the place hardly showed at all—but she was busy that evening, and did not happen to come up. So bed-time came, and still we had not made friends, though I heard Winny crying when she was saying her prayers. After we were in bed, and nurse had gone away, Winny whispered to me, “Meg, won’t you forgive me for saying that unkind thing? Won’t you kiss me and say good-night, Winny?”

A minute before, I had been feeling as sorry as could be, but when Winny spoke to me, a most hard, horrid, unkind feeling seemed to come back into my heart, and I would not answer. I breathed as if I were asleep, pretending not to hear. I think Winny thought I was asleep, for she did not speak again. I heard her crying softly, and then after a while I heard by her breathing that she had really gone to sleep. But I couldn’t. I lay awake a long time, I thought it was hours and hours, and I tossed and turned, but I couldn’t go to sleep. I listened but I could not hear Winny breathing—I put my hand out of my cot, and stretched across to hers to feel for her; she seemed to be lying quite still. Then a dreadful feeling came into my mind—suppose Winny were dead, and that I had refused to make friends and say good-night! I must have got fanciful with lying awake, I suppose, and you know I was only a very little girl. I could not bear it—I stretched myself across to Winny and put my arms round her.

“Winny! Winny!” I said, “wake up, Winny, and kiss me, and let us say good-night.”

Winny woke up almost immediately, and she seemed to understand at once.

“Poor little Meg,” she said, “poor little Meg. We will never be unkind to each other again—never. Good-night, dear Meg.”

“Good-night, Winny,” I said. And just as I was falling asleep I whispered to her—“I will never let you go to sleep again, Winny, without saying good-night.” And I never did, never except once .

I could tell you ever so many other things about Winny, but I daresay you would be tired, for, of course, they cannot be so interesting to any other little girls as to me. But I think you will wish to hear about our last good-night.

Have I told you about our aunts at all? We had two aunties we were very fond of. They were young and merry and so kind to us, and there was nothing we liked so much as going to stay with them, for their home—our grandfather’s—was not far away. We generally all went there to spend Christmas, but one year something, I forget what, had prevented this, so to make up for it we were promised to spend Easter with them. We did so look forward to it—we were to go by ourselves, just like young ladies going to pay a visit, and we were to stay from Saturday till Easter Monday or Tuesday.

On the Saturday morning we woke up so early—hours before it was time to be dressed—we were so excited about our visit. But somehow Winny did not seem quite as happy about it as I wanted her to be. I asked her what made her dull, and she said it was because she did not like leaving papa and mamma, and Dolly and Blanche, not even for two or three days. And when we went into mamma’s room to say good-morning as usual, Winny said so to her too. Mamma laughed at her a little, and said she was a great baby after all; and Winny smiled, but still she seemed dull, and I shall never forget what a long long kiss she gave mamma that morning, as if she could When we went to the nursery for breakfast, baby Blanche was crying very much, and nurse said she was very cross. She did not think she was quite well, and we must be good and quiet. After breakfast, when mamma came to see baby, she seemed anxious about her, but baby went to sleep before long quite comfortably, and then nurse said she would be better when she awoke; it was probably just a little cold. And very soon the pony carriage was ready for Winny and me, and we kissed them all and set off on our visit. I was in high spirits, but as we drove away I saw that Winny was actually crying a little, and she did not often cry.

When we got to our aunties’, however, she grew quite happy again. We were very happy indeed on Sunday, only Winny kept saying how glad she would be to see them all at home again on Monday or Tuesday. But on Monday morning there came a letter, which made our aunties look grave. They did not tell us about it till Winny asked if we were to go home “to-day,” and then they told us that perhaps we could not go home for several days—not for two or three weeks even, for poor baby Blanche was very ill, and it was a sort of illness we might catch from her if we were with her.

“And that would only add to your poor mamma’s trouble,” said our aunties; “so you see, dears, it is much the best for you to stay here.”

I did not mind at all; indeed I was pleased. I was sorry about baby, but not very, for I thought she would soon be better. But Winny looked very sad.

“Aunty,” she said, “you don’t think poor baby will die , do you?”

“No, dear; I hope she will soon be better,” said aunty, and then Winny looked happier.

“Meg,” she whispered to me, “we must be sure to remember about poor baby being ill when we say our prayers.” And we fixed that we would.

After that we were very happy for two or three weeks. Sometimes we were sorry about baby and Dolly, for baby was very ill we were told, and Dolly had caught the fever too. But after a while news came that they were both better, and we began to look forward to seeing papa and mamma and them again. We used to write little letters to them all at home, and that was great fun; and we used to go such nice walks. The fields and lanes were full of daffodils, and soon the primroses came and the violets, and Winny was always gathering them and making wreaths and nosegays. It was a very happy time, and it all comes back into my mind dreadfully , when I see the spring flowers, especially the primroses, every year.

One day we had had a particularly nice walk, and when we came in Winny seemed so full of spirits that she hardly knew what to do with herself. We had a regular romp. In our romping, by accident, Winny knocked me down, for she was very strong, and I hurt my thumb. I was often silly about being hurt even a little, and I began to cry. Then Winny was so sorry; she kissed me and petted me, and gave me all her primrose wreaths and nosegays, so I soon left off crying. But somehow Winny’s high spirits had gone away. She shivered a little and went close to the fire to get warm, and soon she said she was tired, and we both went to bed. I remember that night so well. Winny did not seem sleepy when she was in bed, and I wasn’t either. She talked to me a great deal, and so nicely. It was not about when we should be big girls; it was about now things; about not being cross ever, and helping mamma, and about how pretty the lowers had looked, and how kind every one was to us, and how kind God must be to make every one so, and just at the last, as she was falling asleep, she said, “I do wonder so if there are primroses in heaven?” and then she fell asleep, and so did I.

When I woke in the morning, I heard voices talking beside me. It was one of our aunties. She was standing beside Winny, speaking to her. When she looked round and saw that I was awake, she said to me in a kind but rather a strange voice, “Meg, dear, put on your dressing-gown and run down to my room to be dressed. Winny has a headache, and I think she had better not get up to breakfast.”

I got up immediately and put on my slippers, and I was running out of the room when I thought of something and ran back. I put Winny’s slippers neatly beside her crib, and I said to her, “I have put them ready for you when you get up, Winny.” I wanted to do something for her you see, because I was so sorry about her headache. She did not speak, but she looked at me with such a look in her eyes. Then she said, “Kiss me, Meg, dear little Meg,” and I was just going to kiss her when she suddenly seemed to remember, and she drew back. “No, dear, you mustn’t,” she said; “aunty would say it was better not, because I’m not well.”

“Could I catch your headache, Winny?” I said, “or is it a cold you’ve got? You are not very ill, Winny?”

She only smiled at me, and just then I heard aunty calling to me to be quick. Winny’s little hand was hanging over the side of the bed. I took it, and kissed it—poor little hand, it felt so hot—“I may kiss your hand, mayn’t I?” I said, and then I ran away.

All that day I was kept away from Winny, playing by myself in rooms we did not generally go into. Sometimes my aunties would come to the door for a minute and peep at me, and ask me what I would like to play with, but it was very dull. My aunties’ maid took me a little walk in the garden, and she put me to bed, but I cried myself to sleep because I had not said good-night to Winny.

“Oh how I wish I had never been cross to her!” I kept thinking; and if only I could make other children understand how dreadful that feeling was, I am sure, quite sure, they would never, never quarrel.

The next day was just the same, playing alone, dinner alone, everything alone. I was so lonely. I never saw aunty till the evening, when it was nearly bed-time, and then she came to the room where I was, and I called out to her immediately to ask how Winny was.

“I hope she will soon be better,” she said. “And, Meg, dear, it is your bed-time now.”

The thought of going to bed again without Winny was too hard. I began to cry.

“O aunty!” I said, “I do so want to say good-night to Winny. I always say good-night, and last night I couldn’t.”

Aunty thought for a minute. She looked so sorry for me. Then she said, “I will see if I can manage it. Come after me, Meg.” She went up through a part of the house I did not know, and into a room where there was a closed door. She tapped at it without opening, and called out. “Meg has come to say good-night to you, through the door, Winny dear.”

Then I heard Winny’s voice say softly, “I am so glad;” and I called out quite loud, “Good-night, Winny,” but Winny answered—I could not hear her voice without listening close at the door—“Not good-night now, Meg. It is good-bye , dear Meg.”

I looked up at aunty. It seemed to me her face had grown white, and the tears were in her eyes. Somehow, I felt a little afraid.

“What does Winny mean, aunty?” I said in a whisper.

“I don’t know, dear. Perhaps being ill makes her head confused,” she said. So I called out again, “Good-night, Winny,” and aunty led me away.

But Winny was right. It was good-bye. The next morning when aunty’s maid was dressing me, I saw she was crying.

“What is the matter, Hortense?” I said. “Why are you unhappy? Is any one vexed with you?”

But she only shook her head and would not speak.

After I had had my breakfast, Hortense took me to my aunties’ sitting-room. And when she opened the door, to my delight there was mamma, sitting with both my aunties by the fire. I was so pleased, I gave quite a cry of joy, and jumped on to her knee.

“Does Winny know you’ve come?” I cried, “ dear mamma.”

But when I looked at her I saw that her face was very white and sad, and my poor aunties were crying. Still mamma smiled.

“Poor Meg!” she said.

“What is the matter? Why is everybody so strange to-day?” I said.

Then mamma told me. “Meg, dear,” she said, “you must try to remember some of the things I have often told you about Heaven, what a happy place it is, with no being ill or tired, or any troubles. Meg, dear, Winny has gone there.”

For a minute I did not seem to understand. I could not understand Winny’s having gone without telling me. A sort of giddy feeling came over me, it was all so strange, and I put my head down on mamma’s shoulder, without speaking.

“Meg, dear, do you understand?” she said.

“She didn’t tell me she was going,” I said, “but, oh yes, I remember she said good-bye last night. Did she go alone, mamma? Who came for her? Did Jesus ?” Something made me whisper that.

Mamma just said softly, “Yes.”

“Had she only her little pink dressing-gown on?” I asked next. “Wouldn’t she be cold? Mamma, dear, is it a long way off?”

“Not to her ,” she said. She was crying now.

“Do you think if I set off now, this very minute, I could get up to her?”

But when I said that, mamma clasped me tight.

“Not that too,” she whispered. “Meg, Meg, don’t say that.”

I was sorry for her crying, and I stroked her cheek, but still I wanted to go.

“Heaven is such a nice place, mamma. Winny said so, only she wondered about the primroses. Why won’t you let me go, mamma?” And just then my eyes happened to fall on the little piece of black sticking-plaster that Winny had put on my thumb only two evenings before, when she had hurt it without meaning. “Mamma, mamma,” I cried, “I can’t stay here without Winny.”

It all seemed to come into my mind then what it would really be to be without her, and I cried and cried till my face ached with crying. I can’t remember much of that day, nor of several days. I did not get ill, the fever did not come to me somehow, but I seemed to get stupid with missing Winny. Mamma and my aunties talked to me, but it did not do any good. They could not tell me the only things I cared to hear—all about Winny, what she was doing, what lessons she would have, if she would always wear white frocks, and all sorts of things, that I must have sadly pained them by asking. For I did not then at all understand about death. I thought that Winny, my pretty Winny, just as I had known her, had gone to Heaven. I did not know that her dear little body had been laid to rest in the quiet churchyard, and that it was her spirit , her pure happy spirit, that had gone to heaven. It was not for a long time after that, that I was old enough to understand at all, and even now it is hard to understand. Mamma says even quite big, and very, very clever people find it hard, and that the best way is to trust to God to explain it afterwards. But still I like to think about it, and I like to think of what my aunties told me of the days Winny was ill—how happy and patient she was, how she seemed to “understand” about going, and how she loved to have fresh wreaths of primroses about her all the time she was ill.

I am a big girl now—nearly twelve. I am a good deal bigger than Winny was when she died, even Blanche is now as big as she was—is that not strange to think of? Perhaps I may live to be quite, quite an old woman—that seems stranger still. But even if I do I shall never forget Winny. I shall know her dear face again, and she will know mine—I feel sure she will, in that happy country where she has gone. But I will never again say “good night” to my Winny, for in that country “there is no night—neither sorrow nor weeping.”

Chapter Four.

Con and the Little People.

“They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came home again
Her friends were all gone.”

There was once a boy who was a very good sort of a boy, except for two things; or perhaps I should say one thing. I am really not sure whether they were two things, or only two sides of the same thing; perhaps, children, you can decide. It was this. He could not bear his lessons, and his head was always running on fairies. You may say it is no harm to think about fairies, and I do not say that in moderation it is. But when it goes the length of thinking about them so much that you have no thought for anything else, then I think it is harm—don’t you? and I daresay that this had to do with Con’s hating his lessons so. Perhaps you will think it was an odd fancy for a boy: it is more often that girls think about fairies, but you must remember that there are a great many kinds of fairies. There are pixies and gnomes, and brownies and cobs, all manner of queer, clever, mischievous, and kindly creatures, besides the pretty, gentle, little people whom one always thinks of as haunting the woods in the summer time, and hiding among the flowers.

Con knew all about them; where he got his knowledge from I can’t say, but I hardly think it was out of books. However that may have been, he did know all about the fairy world as accurately as some boys know all about birds’ nests, and squirrels, and field mice, and hedgehogs. And there was one good thing about this fancy of Con’s; it led him to know a great many queer things about out-of-door’s creatures that most boys would not have paid attention to. He did not care to know about birds’ nests for the sake of stealing them for instance, but he had fancies that some of the birds were special favourites of the fairies, and it led him to watch their little ways and habits with great attention. He knew always where the first primroses were to be found, because he thought the fairies dug up the earth about their roots, and watered them at night, when every one was asleep, with magic water out of the lady well, to make them come up quicker, and many a morning he would get up very very early, in hopes of surprising the tiny gardeners at their work before they had time to decamp. But he never succeeded in doing so; and, after all, when he did have an adventure, it came, as most things do, just exactly in a way he had never in the least expected it.

Con’s home had something to do with his fancifulness perhaps. I won’t tell you where it was, for it doesn’t matter; and though some of the wiser ones among you may think you can guess what country he belonged to when I tell you that his real name was not Con, but Connemara, I must tell you you are mistaken. No, I won’t tell you where his home was, but I will tell you what it was. It was a sort of large cottage, and it was perched on the side of a mountain, not a hill, a real mountain, and a good big one too, and there were ever so many other mountains near by. There was a pretty garden round the cottage, and at the back a door opened in the garden wall right on to the mountain. Wasn’t that nice? And if you climbed up a little way you had such a view. You could see all the other mountains poking their heads up into the sky one above the other—some of them looked bare and cold, and some looked comfortable and warmly clad in cloaks of trees and shrubs and furze, but still they all looked beautiful. For the sunshine and the clouds used to chase each other over the heights and valleys so fast it was like giants playing bo-peep; that was on fine days of course. On foggy and rainy days there were grand sights to be seen too. First one mountain and then another would put on a nightcap of great heavy clouds, and sometimes the night-caps would grow down all over them till they were quite hidden; and then all of a sudden they would rise off again slowly, hit by bit, till Con could see first up to the mountain’s waist, then up, up, up to the very top again. That was another kind of bo-peep.

Summer and winter, fine or wet, cold or hot, Con used to go to school every day. He was only seven years old, and there was a good way to walk, more than a mile; but it was very seldom, very, very seldom, that he missed going. There were reasons why it was best for him to go; his father and mother knew them, and he was too good not to do what they told him, whether he liked it or not. But he was like the horse that one man led to the water, but twenty couldn’t make drink. There was no difficulty in making Con go to school; but as for getting him to learn once he was there—ah, no! that was a different matter. So I fear I cannot say that he was much of a favourite with his teachers. You see they didn’t know that his little head was so full of fairies that it really had no room for anything else, and it was only natural that they should think him inattentive and even stupid, and their thinking so did not make Con like his lessons any better. And with his playmates he was not a favourite either. He never quarrelled with them, but he did not seem to care about their games, and they laughed at him, and called him a muff. It was a pity, for I believe it was partly to make him play with other boys that his father and mother sent him to school; and for some things the boys couldn’t help liking him. He was so good-natured, and, for such a little fellow, so brave. He could climb trees like a squirrel, and he was never afraid of anything. Many and many a short winter’s afternoon it was dark before Con left school to come home, but he did not mind at all. He would sling his satchel of books across his shoulders, and trudge manfully home—thinking—thinking. By this time I daresay you can guess of what he was thinking.

There were two ways by which he could come home from school—there was the road, really not better than a lane, and when he came that way you see he had to do all his climbing at the end, for the road was pretty level, winding along round the foot of the mountain, perched on the side of which was Con’s home; and there was what was called the hill road, which ran up the mountain behind the village, and then went bobbing up and down along the mountain side still gradually ascending, away, away, I don’t know where to—up to some lonely shepherds’ huts I daresay, where nobody but the shepherds and the sheep ever went. But on its way it passed not very far from Con’s home. I need hardly say that the hill road was the boy’s favourite way. He liked it because it was more “climby,” and for another reason too. By this way, he passed the cottage of an old woman named Nance, of whom he was extremely fond, and to whom he would always stop to speak if he possibly could.

I don’t know that many boys and girls would have taken a fancy to Nance. She was certainly not pretty, and what is more she was decidedly queer . She was very very small, indeed the smallest person I ever heard of, I think. When Con stood beside her, though he was only seven, he really looked bigger than she did, and she was so funnily dressed too. She always wore green, quite a bright green, and her dresses never seemed to get dull or soiled though she had all her housework to do for herself, and she had over her green dress a long brown cloak with a hood, which she generally pulled over her face to shield her eyes from the sun, she said. Her face was very small and brown and puckered-up looking, but she had bright red cheeks, and very bright dark eyes. She was never seen either to laugh or cry; but she used to smile sometimes, and her smile was rather nice.

The neighbours—they were hardly to be called her neighbours, for her house was quite half-a-mile from any other—all called her “uncanny,” or whatever word they used to mean that, and they all said they did not know anything of her history, where she had come from, or anything about her. And once when Con repeated to her some remarks of this kind which he had heard at school, Nance only smiled and said, “no doubt the people of Creendale”—that was the name of the village—“were very wise.”

“But have you always lived here, Nance?” asked Con.

“No, Connemara,” she answered gravely, “not always.”

But that was all she said, and somehow Con did not care to ask her more.

It was not often he asked her questions; he was not that sort of boy for one thing, and besides, there was something about her that forbade it. He used to sit at one side of the cottage fire, or, in summer, on the turf seat just outside the door, watching Nance’s tiny figure as she flitted about, or sometimes just staring up at the sky, or into the fire without speaking. Nance never seemed to mind what he did, and he in no way doubted that she was glad to see him, though by words she had never said so. When he did speak it was always about one thing—what, you can guess, it was always about fairies. It was through this that he had first made friends with Nance. She had found him peering into the hollow trunk of an old solitary oak-tree that stood farther down the hill, not very far from her dwelling.

“What are you doing there, Connemara?” she said.

“I was thinking this might be one of the doors into fairyland,” he answered quietly, without seeming surprised at her knowing his name.

“And what should you know about that place?” she said again.

And Con turned towards her his earnest blue eyes, and told her all his thoughts and fancies. It seemed easier to him to tell Nance about them than it had ever seemed to tell any one else—his feelings seemed to put themselves into words, as if Nance drew them out.

Nance said very little, but she smiled. And after that Con used to stop at her cottage nearly every day on his way home—he dared not on his way to school, for fear of being late, for almost the only thing he always did get was good marks for punctuality. His people at home did not know much about Nance. He told his mother about her once, and asked if he might stay to speak to her; and when his mother heard that Nance’s cottage was very clean, she said, “Yes, she didn’t mind,” and, after that, Con somehow never mentioned her again. He came to have gradually a sort of misty notion that Nance had had something to do with him ever since he was born. She seemed to know everything about him. From the very first she called him by his proper name—not Con or Master Con, but Connemara, and he liked to hear her say it.

One winter afternoon, it was nearly dark though it was only half-past three, Con coming home from school (the master let them out earlier on the very short days), stopped as usual at Nance’s cottage. It was very, very cold, the fierce north wind came swirling down from the mountains, round and round, here, there, and everywhere, till, but for the unmistakable “freeze” in its breath, you would hardly have known whence it blew.

“It is so cold, Nance,” said the boy, as he settled himself by the fire. Nance’s fires always burnt so bright and clear.

“Yes,” said Nance, “the snow is coming, Connemara.”

“I don’t care,” said Con, shaking his shaggy fair hair out of his eyes, for the heat was melting the icicles upon it. “I’m not going to hurry. Father and mother are away for two days, so there’s no one to miss me. Mayn’t I stay, Nance?”

Nance did not answer. She went to the door and looked out, and Con thought he heard her whisper something to herself. Immediately a blast of wind came rushing down the hill, into the very room it seemed to Con. Nance closed the door. “Not long; the storm is coming,” she said again, in answer to his question.

But in the meantime Con made himself very comfortable by the fire, amusing himself as usual by staring into its glowing depths.

“Nance,” he said at last, “do you know what the boys at school say? They say they wonder I’m not afraid of you! They say you’re a witch, Nance!”

He looked up in her face brightly with his fearless blue eyes, and laughed so merrily that all the corners of the queer little cottage seemed to echo it back. Nance, however, only smiled.

“If you were a witch, Nance, I’d make you grant me some wishes, three anyway,” he went on. “Of course you know what the first would be, and, indeed, if I had that, I don’t know that I would want any other. I mean, to go to fairyland, you know.”

Nance nodded her head.

“The other two would be for it to be always summer, and for me never, never, never to have any lessons to learn,” he continued.

“Never to grow a man?” said Nance.

“I don’t know,” answered Con. “ Lessons don’t make boys grow; but still I suppose they have to have them sometime before they are men. But I shouldn’t care if I could go to fairyland, and if it would be always summer; I don’t think I would care about ever being a man.”

As he said these words the fire suddenly sent out a sputtering blaze. It jumped up all at once with such a sort of crackle and fizz, Con could have fancied it was laughing at him. He looked up at Nance. She was not laughing; on the contrary, her face looked very grave, graver than ever he had seen it.

“Connemara,” she said slowly, “take care. You don’t know what you are saying.”

But Con stared into the fire again and did not answer. I hardly think he heard what she said; the warm fire made him drowsy, and the brightness dazzled his eyes. He was almost beginning to nod, when Nance spoke again to him, rather sharply this time.

“My boy, the snow is beginning; you must go.” Con’s habit of obedience made him start up, sleepy though he was. Nance was already at the door looking out.

“Do not linger on the way, Connemara,” she said, “and do not think of anything but home. It will be a wild night, but if you go straight and swift you will reach home soon.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Con stoutly, as he set off.

“I could wish he were,” murmured Nance to herself, as she watched the little figure showing dark against the already whitening hill side, till it was out of sight.

Then she came back into the cottage, but she could not rest.

Con strode on manfully; the snow fell thicker and thicker, the wind blew fiercer and fiercer, but he had no misgiving. He had never before been out in a snow-storm, and knew nothing of its special dangers. For some time he got on very well, keeping strictly to the path, but suddenly, some little way up the mountain to his right, there flashed out a bright light. It jumped and hopped about in the queerest way. Con stood still to watch.

“Can it be a will-o’-the-wisp?” thought he, in his innocence forgetting that a bleak mountain side in a snow-storm is hardly the place for jack-o’-lanterns and such like.

But while he watched the light it all at once settled steadily down, on a spot apparently but a few yards above him.

“It may be some one that has lost their road,” thought Con; “I could easily show it them. I may as well climb up that little way to see;” for strangely enough the thought of the fairies having anything to do with what he saw never once occurred to him.

He left the path and began to climb. There, just above him, was the light, such a pretty clear light, shining now so steadily. It did not seem to move, but still as fast as he thought he had all but reached it, it receded, till at last, tired, and baffled, he decided that it must be a will-o’-the-wisp, and turned to regain the road. But like so many wise resolutions, this one was more easily made than executed; Con could not find the road, hard though he tried. The snow came more and more thickly till it blinded and bewildered him hopelessly. Con did his utmost not to cry, but at last he could bear up no longer. He sank down on the snow and sobbed piteously; then a pleasant resting feeling came over him, gradually he left off crying and forgot all his troubles; he began to fancy he was in his little bed at home, and remembered nothing more about the snow or anything.

Nance meanwhile had been watching anxiously at her door. She saw that the snow was coming faster, and that the wind was rising. Every now and then it seemed to rush down with a sort of howling scream, swept round the kitchen and out again, and whenever it did so, the fire would leap up the chimney, as if it were laughing at some one.

“Frisken is at his tricks to-night,” said Nance to herself, and every moment she seemed to grow more and more anxious. At last she could bear it no longer. She reached a stout stick, which stood in a corner of the room, drew her brown cloak more closely round her, and set off down the path where she had lost sight of Con. The storm of wind and snow seemed to make a plaything of her; her slight little figure swayed and tottered as she hastened along, but still she persevered. An instinct seemed to tell her where she should find the boy; she aimed almost directly for the place, but still Connemara had lain some time in his death-like sleep before Nance came up to him. There was not light enough to have distinguished him; what with the quickly-approaching darkness and the snow, which had already almost covered his little figure, Nance could not possibly have discovered him had she not stumbled right upon him. But she seemed to know what she was about, and she did not appear the least surprised. She managed with great difficulty to lift him in her arms, and turned towards her home. Alas, she had only staggered on a few paces when she felt that her strength was going. Had she not sunk down on to the ground, still tightly clasping the unconscious child, she would have fallen.

“It is no use,” she whispered at last; “they have been too much for me. The child will die if I don’t get help. The only creature that has loved me all these long, long years! Oh, Frisken, you might have played your tricks elsewhere, and left him to me. But now I must have your help.”

She struggled again to her feet, and, with her stick, struck sharply three times on the mountain side. Immediately a door opened in the rock, revealing a long passage within, with a light, as of a glowing fire, at the end, and Nance, exerting all her strength, managed to drag herself and Con within this shelter. Instantly the door closed again.

No sooner had it done so, no sooner was Nance quite shut out from the outside air, than a strange change passed over her. She grew erect and vigorous, and the weight of the boy in her arms seemed nothing to her. She looked many years younger in an instant, and with the greatest ease she carried Con along the passage, which ended in a small cave, where a bright fire was burning, in front of which lay some soft furry rugs, made of the skins of animals. With a sigh Nance laid Con gently down on the rugs. “He will do now,” she said to herself.

The first thing Con was aware of when a sort of half-consciousness returned to him, was the sound of voices. He did not recognise either of them; he was too sleepy to think where he was, or to take in the sense of what he heard, but long afterwards the words returned to him.

“Of course we shall do him no harm,” said the first voice. “That is not our way with those who come to us as he has done. All his life he has been wishing to come to us, and we might bear you a grudge for trying to stop him.”

Here the speaker burst into a curious, ringing laugh, which seemed to be re-echoed by numberless other voices in the distance.

“You made him wish it,” answered some one—it was Nance—sadly.

“ We made him wish it! Ha, ha! ha, ha! Did you ever hear anything like that, my dear friends? Why did his mother tie up his sleeves with green ribbon before he was christened? Answer that. Ha, ha! ha, ha!” And then there came another succession of rollicking laughter.

“It was to be, I suppose,” said Nance. “But you won’t keep him. I brought him here to save his life, not to lose his—”

“Hush, hush; how can you be so ill-mannered?” interrupted the other. “ Keep him? of course not, unless he wants to stay , the pretty dear.”

“But will you make him want to stay?” pleaded Nance.

“How could we?” said the other mockingly. “How could we influence him? He is a pupil of yours. But if you like to change your mind, you may come back instead of him. Ha, ha! ha, ha! what a joke!” And the laughter sounded as if the creatures, whoever they were, were holding their sides, and rolling about in the extremity of their glee. It faded away, gradually however, growing more and more indistinct, as if receding into the distance. And Con turned round on his side, and fell asleep more soundly than ever.

When at last he really awoke he found himself lying on a bed of soft moss, under the shade of some great trees, for it was summer time—summer evening time it seemed, for the light was subdued, like that of the sun from behind a cloud. Con started up in amazement, rubbing his eyes to make sure he was not dreaming. Where was he? How could it all be? The last thing he remembered was losing his way in the snow-storm on the mountain; what had become of the winter and the snow? He looked about him; the place he was in seemed to be a sort of forest glade; the foliage of the trees was so thickly interlaced overhead that only little patches of sky were here and there to be seen. There was no sunshine; just the same even, pale light over everything. It gave him again the feeling of being in a dream. Suddenly a sound caught his ears, it was that of running water; he turned in the direction whence it came.

It was the loveliest little brook you ever saw—“with many a curve” it wound along through the forest, and on its banks grew the most exquisite and wonderful variety of flowers. Flowers of every colour, but of shapes and forms Con had never seen before. He stood looking at them in bewildered delight, and as he looked, suddenly the thought for the first time flashed into his mind—“This is fairyland! I have got my wish at last. I am in fairyland!”

There was something, even to him, almost overwhelming in the idea. He could not move or speak, hardly even breathe. All at once there burst out in every direction, above his head, beneath his feet, behind him, in front of him, everywhere in fact, peals and peals of laughter—the clearest, merriest, most irresistible laughter you ever heard.

“It’s the fairies,” thought Con, “but where are they?”

Where were they? Everywhere. There came another shrill peal of laughter and up they sprang, all together, from every imaginable corner. There was not a branch of a tree, hardly even a twig, it seemed to Con, on which one was not perched. They poked up their comical faces above the clear water of the brook where they must have been hiding, though how he had failed to see them there the boy could not imagine; they started up from the ground in such numbers, that Con lifted carefully first one foot and then the other to make sure he was not tramping upon some of them; they actually swarmed, and Con could not make it out at all. Could they have only just come, or had they been there all the time, and had something wrong with his eyes prevented his seeing them before? No, he couldn’t make it out.

Were they like what he had expected to find them? Hardly, at least he was not sure. Yet they were very pretty; they were as light and bright and agile as—like nothing he could think of. Their faces seemed to be brimming over with glee; there was not a sad or anxious look among them. They were dressed in every colour of the rainbow, I was going to say, but that would not be true, for there were no brilliant colours among them. In every shade that you see in the woods in autumn would be more correct; the ladies in the soft greens and brown pinks and tender yellows of the fading leaves, the gentlemen in the olives and russet-browns and purples which give the deeper tints of autumn foliage—perhaps this was the reason that Con had not at first distinguished them from the leaves and the moss and the tree-roots where they had lain hidden?

He stood gazing at them in silence, wondering when they were going to leave off laughing. At last the noise subsided, and one fairy, who had been swinging on a bough just above Con’s head, slid down and stood before him.

“Welcome to fairyland, Connemara,” he said pompously. He was one of the tallest among them, reaching above Con’s waist. His face, like the rest, was full of fun, but it had a look of great determination too. “My name is Frisken,” he continued, “at least that’s one of my names, and it will do for you to use as well as any other, though up above there they have ever so many names for me. I am an old friend of yours, though you may not know it, and you will find it for your interest to please me. We’ve given up kings and queens lately, we find it’s better fun without; but, considering everything, I think I may say my opinion is considered of some importance. Elves, do you agree with me?”

They all raised a shout of approval, and Frisken turned again to Con. “Our laws are easy to keep,” he said, “you will soon know them. Your duties are comprised in one word, Play , and if ever you attempt to do anything else it will be the worse for you. You interrupted us in the middle of a dance, by-the-by. Elves, strike up the music.”

Then Frisken took Con’s right hand, and a lovely little maiden clad in the palest green, and with flowing yellow hair, took the other, and the fairies made themselves into dozens and dozens of rings, and twirled and whirled away to the sound of the gayest and most inspiriting music. Con had never enjoyed himself so much in his life, and the best of it was the more he danced the more he wanted to dance; he jumped and whirled and twirled as fast as any (though I have no doubt the fairies thought him rather clumsy about it), and yet without the very least feeling of fatigue. He felt as if he could have gone on for ever. Suddenly the elves stopped.

“Oh don’t stop!” said Con, who was beginning to feel quite at home, “do let’s go on. I am not a bit tired.”

“ Tired ,” said Frisken, contemptuously, “whoever heard such a word? How can you be so ill-mannered? Besides, mortal though you are, you certainly should not be tired. Why, you’re only just awake, and you slept long enough to last you at any rate for—”

“For how long?” said Con, timidly.

But Frisken did not answer, and Con, who was rather in awe of him, thought it best not to press the enquiry. The fairies did not go on dancing, however. They were fond of variety, evidently, whether they ever got tired or not. They now all “adjourned” to another part of the forest, where a grand banquet was prepared. What the viands were, Con had no idea, but he little cared, for they were the most delicious he had ever tasted. He was not a greedy boy by any means, but he did enjoy this feast; everything was so charming; the fairies all reclined on couches made of the same soft green moss as that on which he had found himself lying when he first awoke, and all the time the invisible musicians played lovely, gentle music, which, had Con not winked violently, would have brought the tears to his eyes, for, somehow, it made him think of home, and wonder what his mother was doing, and whether she was in trouble about his absence. It did not seem to affect the fairies in the same way; they were chattering, and joking, and laughing, just as merrily as ever; once Con caught Frisken’s eye fixed upon him, and almost immediately after, the music stopped, and the games began. What wonderful games they were! I cannot tell you half of them; one favourite one you may have heard of before—they buried a seed a little way in the ground, and then danced round it in a circle, singing some queer wild words which Con could not understand. Then they all stood still and called to Con to look; he could hardly believe his eyes—there was the seed already a little plant, and even as he looked, it grew, and grew, and grew, up into a great strong tree; and as the branches rose higher and higher, the fairies caught hold of them and rose up with them into the sky, till the tree seemed to be covered with fruits of every shape and colour. Con had not recovered his amazement, when they were all down again, ready for something else. This time, perhaps, it would be the mouse game—a dozen or two of fairies would turn themselves into mice, and Frisken and one or two others into cats, and then what a chase they had! It puzzled Con quite as much as the seed game, for he was sure he saw Frisken gobble up two or three mice, and yet—in a moment, there they all were again in their proper fairy forms, not one missing! He wished he could ask Frisken to explain it, but he had not time, for now an expedition to the treasure caves was proposed, and off they all set, some riding on fairy piebald ponies about the size of a rocking-horse, some driving in mother-of-pearl chariots drawn by large white cats, some running, some dancing along. And, oh, the treasure caves, when they got there! All the stories Con had ever heard of—Aladdin, and genii and pirates’ buried riches, none of them came up to these wonderful caves in the least. There were just heaps of precious stones, all cut and polished, and, according to fairy notions, quite ready for wear. For they all helped themselves to as many jewels as they wanted, strung them together on silk, with needles that pierced them as easily as if they had been berries, and flitted about as long as the fancy lasted, wreathed in diamonds and rubies, and emeralds, and every sort of brilliant stone. And then when they had had enough of them, threw them away as ruthlessly as children cast aside their withered daisy-chains.

And so it went on without intermission; incessant jousts and revels, and banquets, constant laughter and joking, no pain, no fatigue, no anxiety. For the fairies live entirely and completely in the present, past and future have no meaning to their heedless ears, time passes as if it were not; they have no nights or days, no summer or winter. It is always the same in fairyland.

But some things puzzled Con sorely. Strangely enough, in this realm of thoughtlessness, he was beginning to think as well as to fancy, to wish to know the whys and wherefores of things, as he had never done before. Now and then he tried to question Frisken, who, he felt certain, knew all he wished to learn, but it was difficult ever to get him to explain anything. Once, I was very nearly saying one day , but there are no such things there—Con could keep no count of time, he could have told how many banquets he had been at, how many times they had been to the caves, how often they had bathed in the stream, but that was all—once, then, when Frisken seemed in a quieter mood than usual, Con tried what he could do.

“Frisken,” he said, “why is it that all the oldest looking fairies among you are the smallest. Why, there’s the old fairy that drives the largest chariot, he’s not above half as big as you? It seems to me they keep getting smaller and smaller as they get older; why is it?”

“Of course they do. What else would you have?” said Frisken. “What an owl the boy must be! How can you ask such ill-mannered questions?”

“Do you mean they get smaller and smaller till they die?” said Con.

Frisken sprang to his feet with a sort of yell. It was the first time Con had seen him put out, but even now he seemed more terrified than angry. He sat down again, shaking all over.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he gasped; “we never mention such things.”

“But what becomes of you all then— afterwards ?” said Con, more discreetly.

Frisken had recovered himself.

“What do you mean by your afters and befores and thens?” he said; “Isn’t now enough for you? What becomes of them? why, what becomes of things up there in that world of yours—where do the leaves and the flowers and the butterflies go to—eh?”

“But they are only things ,” persisted Con, “they have no—”

“ Hush !” screamed Frisken, “how can you be so ill-mannered? come along, the music is beginning; they are waiting for us to dance.”

But it was with a heavy heart that Con joined the dance. He was beginning to be very tired of this beautiful fairyland, and to wish very much that he could go home to the cottage on the mountain, to his father and mother, even to his lessons! A shudder ran through him as old tales that he had heard or read, and scarcely understood, returned to his mind—of children stolen by the fairies who never went home again till too late, and who then in despair returned to their beautiful prison to become all that was left to them to be, fairies themselves, things , like the flowers and the butterflies—supposing already it was too late for him? quickly as the time had passed, for all he knew, he had been a century in fairyland!

But he had to dance and to sing and to play incessantly like the others. He must not let them suspect his discontent or he would lose all chance of escape. He watched his opportunity for getting more information out of Frisken.

“Do you never go ‘up there?’” he asked him once, using the fairy word for the world he had left, “for a change you know, and to play tricks on people—that must be such fun.”

Frisken nodded his head mysteriously. He was delighted to see what a regular elfin Con was growing.

“Sometimes,” he said. “It’s all very well for a little while, but I couldn’t stay there long. The air is so thick—ugh—and the cold and the darkness! You wouldn’t believe, would you, now that you know what it’s like down here, that fairies have been known to go up there and to stay by their own choice—to become clumsy, miserable, short-lived mortals?”

“What made them?” said Con.

“Oh, a stupid idea that if they stayed up there they would have the chance of growing into— oh, nonsense, don’t let us talk of anything so disagreeable. Come and have some games.”

But Con persisted. He had discovered that when he got Frisken all to himself he had a strange power of forcing him to answer his questions.

“Was old Nance once down here?” he asked suddenly. Frisken wriggled.

“What if she was?” he said, “she’s not worth speaking about.”

“Why did she go up there?” said Con.

“She was bewitched,” answered Frisken. “I cannot think why you like to talk about such stupid things. You have forgotten about things up there; luckily for you you came down here before you had learnt much. Did you ever hear talk of a stupid thing they call ‘love’ up there? That took her up, and then she stayed because she got more nonsense in her head.”

“ I love my mother and my father,” said Con stoutly.

“Nonsense,” said Frisken, “you make me feel sick. You must forget all that. Come along and make a tree.”

But Con did not forget. He thought about it all constantly, and he understood much that he had never dreamt of before. He grew to detest his life among the fairies, and to long and plan for escape. But how to manage it he had no notion; which was the way “up” the fairies carefully concealed from him, and he had no clue to guide him.

“Nance! Nance! are you there? O dear Nance! do let me out, and take me home to my mother again. O Nance! Nance!”

It was Con. He had managed to escape from Frisken and the others, amusing themselves in the treasure caves, and had made his way along a narrow winding passage in the rock, with a vague idea that as it went “up” it would perhaps prove to be a way out of fairyland. He had passed the little cave where Nance had warmed him by the fire, and the sight of it had brought back a misty feeling that Nance had had something to do with that night’s adventures. Now he was standing at the end of the passage, the way was stopped by a great wall of rock, he could go no farther. In an agony of fear lest his fairy jailers should overtake him, he beat upon the rock and cried for his old friend’s help. For some time he got no answer, then suddenly, just as he fancied he heard the rush of the elves behind him in hot pursuit, he caught the sound of his own name whispered softly through the rocky door.

“Connemara,” a voice said, “I will strike the door three times, but stand back or it may crush you.”

He crept back into a corner and listened for the taps. One, two, three, and the tremendously heavy door of stone rolled back without a sound, and in a moment Con was back in the stupid old world again! There stood Nance; she put her arms round him and kissed him without speaking. Then “run home, Connemara,” she said, “run home fast, and do not linger. There is light enough to see the way, and there will soon be more.”

“But come with me, dear Nance. I want to tell you all about it. Come home with me and I will tell mother you saved me.”

But Nance shook her head. “I cannot,” she said, sorrowfully; “run home, I entreat you.”

He obeyed her, but turned to look back when he had run a little way. Nance was no longer there.

It was early morning, but it was winter time. The ground was covered with snow beginning to sparkle in the red light of the rising sun. The dear old sun! How glad Con was to see his round face again. The world looked just the same as when he had left it, but suddenly a dreadful fear seized Con. How would he find all at home? How long had he been away? Could it be a hundred years, or fifty, or even only seven, what a terrible change he would find. He thought of “little Bridget” in the ballad, and shivered. He was almost afraid to open the garden door and run in. But everything looked the same; and, yes—there to his delight was old Evan the gardener already at work, apparently no older than when last he had seen him—it must be all right, Evan was so old, that to see him there at all told that no great time could have passed.

“You’ve come home early this morning, Master Con,” he said. “Master and Missis came back last night in all that storm, but they weren’t frightened about you, as they had the message that you had stayed at school.”

“What do you mean, Evan—what message? Who said I had stayed at school?” “ Last night —could it have been only last night ,” he whispered to himself.

“A little boy brought the message, the queerest little chap you ever saw—not as big as you by half hardly, but speaking quite like a man. I met him myself on my way home, and turned back again to tell. What a rough night it was to be sure!”

Feeling as if he were dreaming, Con turned to the house. There on the doorstep stood his mother, looking not a little astonished at seeing him.

“Why, Con, dear,” she exclaimed, “you have come over early this morning. Did you get home-sick in one night?”

But Con had flung his arms round her neck, and was kissing her dreadfully . “O mother, mother! I am so glad to see you again,” he cried.

“You queer boy. Why, I declare he has tears in his eyes!” his mother exclaimed. “Why, Con, dear, you seem as if you had been away a year instead of a night.”

“I will tell you all about it, mother. But, oh! please, why did you tie up my sleeves with green ribbon before I was christened?”

His mother stared. “Now who could have told you that, child?” she said. “It was silly of me, but I only did it to tease old nurse, who was full of fancies. Besides the days of fairy stealings are over, Con, though I have often thought nurse would have been alarmed if she had known how full of fairy fancies you were, my boy.”

“Mother, mother! listen, it is quite true,” said Con, and he hastened to pour out the story of his wonderful adventure. His mother did look astonished, but naturally enough she could not believe it. She would have it he had fallen asleep at old Nance’s cottage and dreamt it all.

“But who was the boy that brought the message then?” said Con. “I know he was a fairy.”

And his mother could not tell what to say.

“I know what to do,” he went on; “will you come with me to Nance’s cottage and ask her ?” and to this his mother agreed.

And that very morning to the old woman’s cottage they went. It was in perfect order as usual, not a speck of dust to be seen; the little bed made, and not a stool out of its place. But there was no fire burning in the little hearth—and no Nance to be seen. Con ran all about, calling her, but she had utterly disappeared. He threw himself on the ground, sobbing bitterly.

“She has gone back to them instead of me—to prevent them coming after me,” he cried, “and oh! she will be so unhappy.”

And nothing that his mother could say would console him.

But a night or two afterwards the boy had a dream, or a vision, which comforted him. He thought he saw Nance; Nance with her kind, strange smile, and she told him not to be troubled. “I have only gone back for a time,” she said, “and they cannot hold me, Connemara. I shall have conquered after all. You will never see me again here. I am soon going to a country very far away. I shall never come back to my little cottage, but still we may meet again and you must not grieve for me.”

So Con’s mind was at peace about his old friend. Of course she never came back, and before long her cottage was pulled down. No one could say to whom it belonged, but no one objected to its destruction. She had been a witch they said, and it was best to do away with her dwelling.

What Con’s mother really came in the end to think about his story, I cannot say; nor do I know if she ever told his father. I fancy Con seldom, if ever, spoke about it again. But as all who knew him when he grew up to be a man could testify, his taste of the land of “all play and no work,” never did him any harm.

Chapter Five.

Mary Ann Jolly.

“But I lost my poor little doll, dears,
As I played in the heath one day;
And I cried for her more than a week, dears—”

They say that the world—and of course that means the people in it—has changed very much in the last half century or so. I daresay in some ways this is true, but it is not in all. There are some ways in which I hope and think people will never change much. Hearts will never change, I hope—good, kind hearts who love and trust each other I mean; and little children, they surely will always be found the same,—simple and faithful, happy and honest; why, the very word childlike would cease to have any meaning were the natures it describes to alter.

Looking back over more than fifty years to a child life then, far away from here, flowing peacefully on, I recognise the same nature, the same innocent, unsuspicious enjoyment, the same quaint, so-called “old-fashioned” ways that now-a-days I find in the children growing up about me. The little ones of to-day enjoy a shorter childhood, there is more haste to hurry them forward in the race—we would almost seem to begrudge them their playtime—but that I think is the only real difference. My darlings are children after all; they love the sunshine and the flowers, mud-pies and mischief, dolls and story-books, as fervently as ever. And long may they do so!

My child of fifty years ago was in all essentials a real child. Yet again, in some particulars, she was exceptional, and exceptionally placed. She had never travelled fifty miles from her home, and that home was far away in the country, in Scotland. And a Scottish country home in those days was far removed from the bustle and turmoil and excitement of the great haunts of men. Am I getting beyond you, children, dear? Am I using words and thinking thoughts you can scarcely follow? Well, I won’t forget again. I will tell you my simple story in simple words.

This long-ago little girl was named Janet. She was the youngest of several brothers and sisters, some of whom, when she was born even, were already out in the world. They were, on the whole, a happy, united family; they had their troubles, and disagreements perhaps too, sometimes, but in one thing they all joined, and that was in loving and petting little Janet. How well she remembers even now, all across the long half century, how the big brothers would dispute as to which of them should carry her in her flowered chintz dressing-gown, perched like a tiny queen on their shoulders, to father’s and mother’s room to say good-morning; how on Hallowe’en the rosiest apples and finest nuts were for “wee Janet;” how the big sisters would work for hours at her dolls’ clothes; how, dearest memory of all, the kind, often careworn, studious father would read aloud to her, hour after hour, as she lay on the hearth-rug, coiled up at his feet.

For little Janet could not read much to herself. She was not blind, but her sight was imperfect, and unless the greatest care had been taken she might, by the time she grew up, have lost it altogether. To look at her you would not have known there was anything wrong with her blue eyes; the injury was the result of an accident in her infancy, by which one of the delicate sight nerves had been hurt, though not so as to prevent the hope of cure. But for several years she was hardly allowed to use her eyes at all. She used to wear a shade whenever she was in a bright light, and she was forbidden to read, or to sew, or to do anything which called for much seeing. How she learnt to read I do not know—I do not think she could have told you herself—but still it is certain that she did learn; perhaps her kind father taught her this, and many more things than either he or she suspected in the long hours she used to lie by his study fire, sometimes talking to him in the intervals of his writing, sometimes listening with intense eagerness to the legends and ballads his heart delighted in, sometimes only making stories to herself as she sat on the hearth-rug playing with her dolls.

There are many quaint little stories of this long-ago maiden that you would like to hear, I think. One comes back to my mind as I write. It is about a mysterious holly bush in the garden of Janet’s home, which one year took it into its head to grow all on one side, in the queerest way you ever saw. This holly bush stood in a rather conspicuous position, just outside the breakfast-room window, and Janet’s father was struck by the peculiar crookedness which afflicted it, and one morning he went out to examine it more closely. He soon found the reason—the main branch had been stunted by half an orange skin, which had been fitted upon it most neatly and closely, like a cap, just where it was sprouting most vigorously. Janet’s father was greatly surprised. “Dear me, dear me,” he exclaimed as he came in; “what a curious thing. How could this ever have got on to the holly bush? An old orange skin, you see,” he went on, holding it up to the assembled family party. Little Janet was there, in her usual place by her father’s chair.

“Was it on the robin’s bush, father?” she asked.

“The robin’s bush, Janet? What do you mean?”

“The bush the wee robin perches on when he comes to sing in the morning,” she answered readily. “A long, long time ago, I tied an orange skin on, to make a soft place for the dear robin’s feet. The bush was so prickly, I could not bear to see him stand upon it.”

And to this day the crooked holly bush tells of the little child’s tenderness.

Then there is another old story of Janet, how, once being sorely troubled with toothache, and anxious to bear it uncomplainingly “like a woman,” she was found, after being searched for everywhere fast asleep in the “byre,” her little cheek pillowed on the soft skin of a few days’ old calf. “Its breath was so sweet, and it felt so soft and warm, it seemed to take the ache away,” she said.

And another old memory of little Janet on a visit at an uncle’s, put to sleep in a room alone, and feeling frightened by a sudden gale of wind that rose in the night, howling among the trees and sweeping down the hills. Poor little Janet! It seemed to her she was far, far away from everybody, and the wind, as it were, took mortal form and voice, and threatened her, till she could bear it no longer. Up she got, all in the dark, and wandered away down the stairs and passages of the rambling old house, till at last a faint glimmer of light led her to a modest little room in the neighbourhood of the kitchen, where old Jamie, the faithful serving-man, who had seen pass away more than one generation of the family he was devoted to, was sitting up reading his Bible before going to bed. How well Janet remembers it even now! The old man’s start of surprise at the unexpected apparition of wee missy, how he took her on his knee and turned over the pages of “the Book,” to read to her words of gentle comfort, even for a little child’s alarm; how Jesus hushed the winds and waves, and bade them be still; how not a hair of the head of even tiny Janet could be injured without the Father’s knowledge; how she had indeed no reason to fear; till, soothed and reassured, the child let the good old man lead her back to bed again, where she slept soundly till morning.

But all this time I am very long of introducing to you, children, the real heroine of this story—not Janet, but who then? Janet’s dearest and most tenderly prized doll—“Mary Ann Jolly.”

She was one of several, but the best beloved of all, though why it would have been difficult to say. She was certainly not pretty; indeed, to tell the truth, I fear I must own that she was decidedly ugly And an ugly doll in those days was an ugly doll, my dears. For whether little girls have altered much or not since the days of Janet’s childhood, there can be no two opinions about dolls; they have altered tremendously, and undoubtedly for the better. There were what people thought very pretty dolls then, and Janet possessed two or three of these. There was “Lady Lucy Manners,” an elegant blonde, with flaxen ringlets and pink kid hands and arms; there was “Master Ronald,” a gallant sailor laddie, with crisp black curls and goggle bead eyes; there were two or three others—Arabellas or Clarissas, I cannot tell you their exact names; on the whole, for that time, Janet had a goodly array of dolls. But still, dearest of all was Mary Ann Jolly. I think her faithfulness, her thorough reliableness, must have been her charm; she never melted, wept tears of wax—that is to say, to the detriment of her complexion, when placed too near the nursery fire. She never broke an artery and collapsed through loss of sawdust. These weaknesses were not at all in her way, for she was of wood, wooden. Her features were oil-painted on her face, like the figure-head of a ship, and would stand washing. Her hair was a good honest black-silk wig, with sewn-on curls, and the whole affair could be removed at pleasure; but oh, my dear children, she was ugly. Where she had come from originally I cannot say. I feel almost sure it was from no authorised doll manufactory. I rather think she was home-made to some extent, and I consider it highly probable that her beautiful features were the production of the village painter. But none of these trifling details are of consequence; wherever she had come from, whatever her origin, she was herself—good, faithful Mary Ann Jolly.

One summer time there came trouble to the neighbourhood where little Janet’s home was. A fever of some kind broke out in several villages, and its victims were principally children. For the elder ones of the family—such of them, that is to say, as were at home—but little fear was felt by their parents; but for Janet and the brother next to her, Hughie, only three years older than she, they were anxious and uneasy. Hughie was taken from the school, a few miles distant, to which every day he used to ride on his little rough pony, and for the time Janet and he were allowed to run wild. They spent the long sunny days, for it was the height of summer, in the woods or on the hills, as happy as two young fawns, thinking, in their innocence, “the fever,” to them but the name of an unknown and unrealisable possibility, rather a lucky thing than otherwise.

And Hughie was a trusty guardian for his delicate little sister. He was a brave and manly little fellow; awkward and shy to strangers, but honest as the day, and with plenty of mother-wit about him. Janet looked up to him with affection and admiration not altogether unmixed with awe. Hughie was great at “knowing best,” in their childish perplexities, and, for all his tenderness, somewhat impatient of “want of sense,” or thoughtlessness.

One day the two children, accompanied as usual by Hughie’s dog “Caesar,” and the no less faithful Mary Ann Jolly, had wandered farther than their wont from home. Janet had set her heart on some beautiful water forget-me-nots, which, in a rash moment, Hughie had told her that he had seen growing on the banks of a little stream that flowed through a sort of gorge between the hills. It was quite three miles from home—a long walk for Janet, but Hughie knew his way perfectly—he was not the kind of boy ever to lose it; the day was lovely, and the burn ran nowhere near the direction they had been forbidden to take—that of the infected village. But Hughie, wise though he was, did not know or remember that close to the spot for which he was aiming ran a road leading directly from this village to the ten miles distant little town of Linnside, and even had he thought of it, the possibility of any danger to themselves attending the fact would probably never have struck him. There was another way to Linnside from their home, so Hughie’s ignorance or forgetfulness was natural.

The way down to the edge of the burn was steep and difficult, for the shrubs and bushes grew thickly together, and there was no proper path.

“Stay you here, Janet,” he said, finding for the child a seat on a nice flat stone at the entrance to the gorge; “I’ll be back before you know I am gone, and I’ll get the flowers much better without you, little woman; and Mary Ann will be company like.”

Janet obeyed without any reluctance. She had implicit faith in Hughie. But after a while Mary Ann confided to her that she was “wearying” of sitting still, and Janet thought it could do no harm to take a turn up and down the sloping field where Hughie had left her. She wandered to a gate a few yards off, and, finding it open, wandered a little farther, till, without knowing it, she was within a stone’s throw of the road I mentioned. And here an unexpected sight met Janet’s eyes, and made her lose all thought of Hughie and the forget-me-nots, and how frightened he would be at missing her. Drawn up in a corner by some trees stood one of those travelling houses on wheels, in which I suppose every child that ever was born has at one time or other thought that it would be delightful to live. Janet had never seen one before, and she gazed at it in astonishment, till another still more interesting object caught her attention.

It was a child—a little girl just about her own age, a dark-eyed, dark-haired, brown-skinned, but very, very thin little girl, lying on a heap of old shawls and blankets on the grass by the side of the movable house. She seemed to be quite alone—there was no one in the waggon apparently, no sound to be heard; she lay quite still, one thin little hand under her head, the other clasping tightly some two or three poor flowers—a daisy or two, a dandelion, and some buttercups—which she had managed to reach without moving from her couch. Janet, from under her little green shade, stared at her, and she returned the stare with interest, for all around was so still that the slight rustle made by the little intruder caught her sharp ear at once. But after a moment her eyes wandered down from Janet’s fair childish face, on which she seemed to think she had bestowed enough attention, and settled themselves on the lovely object nestling in the little girl’s maternal embrace. A smile of pleasure broke over her face.

“What’s yon?” she said, suddenly.

“What’s what ?” said Janet.

“ Yon ,” repeated the child, pointing with her disengaged hand to the faithful Mary Ann.

“ That ,” exclaimed Janet. “That’s my doll. That’s Mary Ann Jolly. Did you never see a doll?”

“No,” replied the brown-skinned waif, “never. She’s awfu’ bonny.”

Janet’s maternal vanity was gratified.

“She’s guid and she’s bonny,” she said, unconsciously imitating, with ludicrous exactness, her own old nurse’s pet expression when she was pleased with her. She hugged Mary Ann closer to her as she spoke. “You’d like to have a dolly too, wouldn’t you, little girl?”

The child smiled.

“I couldna gie her tae ye,” said Janet, relapsing into Scotch, with a feeling that “high English” would probably be lost upon her new friend. “But ye micht tak’ her for a minute in yer ain airms, if ye like?”

“Ay wad I,” said the child, and Janet stepped closer to her and deposited Mary Ann in her arms.

“Canna ye stan’ or walk aboot? Hae ye nae legs?” she inquired.

“Legs,” repeated the child, “what for shud’ I no hae legs? I canna rin aboot i’ the noo; I’ve nae been weel, but I’ll sune be better. Eh my! but she’s awfu’ fine,” she went on, caressing Mary Ann as she spoke.

But at this moment the bark of a dog interrupted the friendly conversation. Caesar appeared, and Janet started forward to reclaim her property, her heart for the first time misgiving her as to “what Hughie would say.” Just as she was taking Mary Ann out of the little vagrant’s arms, Hughie came up. He was hot, breathless, anxious, and, as a natural consequence of the last especially, angry.

“Naughty Janet, bad girl,” he exclaimed, in his excitement growing more “Scotch” than usual. “What for didna ye bide whaur I left ye? I couldna think what had become o’ ye; bad girl. And wha’s that ye’re clavering wi’? Shame on ye, Janet.”

He darted forward, snatched his little sister roughly by the arm, dropping the precious forget-me-nots in his flurry, and dragged Janet away, making her run so fast that she burst out sobbing with fear and consternation. She could not understand it; it was not like Hughie to be so fierce and rough.

“You are very, very unkind,” she began, as soon as her brother allowed her to stop to take breath. “Why should I nae speak to the puir wee girl? She looked sae ill lying there her lane, and she was sae extraordinar’ pleased wi’ Mary Ann.”

“You let her touch Mary Ann, did ye?” said Hughie, stopping short. “I couldna have believed, Janet, you’d be such a fule. A big girl, ten years old, to ken nae better! It’s ‘fare-ye-weel’ to Mary Ann any way, and you have yourself to thank for it.” They were standing near the spot where Hughie had left his sister while he clambered down to the burn, and before Janet had the least idea of his intention, Hughie seized the unfortunate doll, and pitched her, with all his strength, far, far away down among the brushwood of the glen.

For an instant Janet stood in perfect silence. She was too thunderstruck, too utterly appalled and stunned, to take in the reality of what had happened. She had never seen Hughie in a passion in her life; never in all their childish quarrels had he been harsh or “bullying,” as I fear too many boys of his age are to their little sisters. She gazed at him in terrified consternation, slowly, very slowly taking in the fact—to her almost as dreadful as if he had committed a murder—that Hughie had thrown away Mary Ann—her own dear, dear Mary Ann; and Hughie, her own brother had done it! Had he lost his senses?

“Hughie,” she gasped out at last; that was all.

Hughie looked uneasy, but tried to hide it.

“Come on, Janet,” he said, “it’s getting late. We must put our best foot foremost, or nurse will be angry.”

But Janet took no notice of what he said.

“Hughie,” she repeated, “are ye no gaun to get me Mary Ann back again?”

Hughie laughed, half contemptuously. “Get her back again,” he said. “She’s ower weel hidden for me or anybody to get her back again. And why should I want her back when I’ve just the noo thrown her awa’? Na, na, Janet, you’ll have to put up wi’ the loss of Mary Ann; and I only hope you won’t have to put up wi’ waur. It’s your own fault; though maybe I shouldna’ have left her,” he added to himself.

“Hughie, you’ve broke my heart,” said Janet. “What did you do it for?”

“If you’d an ounce of sense you’d know,” said Hughie; “and if you don’t, I’m no gaun to tell.” And in dreary silence the two children made their way home—Hughie, provoked, angry, and uneasy, yet self-reproachful and sore-hearted; Janet in an anguish of bereavement and indignation, yet through it all not without little gleams of faith in Hughie still, that mysteriously cruel though his conduct appeared, there must yet somehow have been a good reason for it.

It was not for long, however, that she understood it. She did not know that immediately they got home honest Hughie went to his father and told him all that had happened, taking blame to himself manfully for having for an instant left Janet alone.

“And you say she does not understand at all why you threw the doll away,” said Janet’s father. “Did she not notice that the little girl had been ill?”

“O yes, but she took no heed of it,” Hughie replied. “She thinks it was just awfu’ unkind of me to get in such a temper. I would like her to know why it was, but I thought maybe I had better not explain till I had told you.”

“You were quite right, Hughie,” said his father; “and I think it is better to leave it. Wee Janet is so impressionable and fanciful, it would not do for her to begin thinking she had caught the fever from the child. We must leave it in God’s hands, and trust no ill will come of it. And the first day I can go to Linnside you shall come with me, and we’ll buy her a new doll.”

“Thank you, father,” said Hughie gratefully. But he stopped as he was leaving the room, with his hand on the door handle, to say, half-laughing, half-pathetically, “I’m hardly thinking, father, that any new doll will make up to wee Janet for Mary Ann.”

Janet heard nothing of this conversation, however, and the silence which was, perhaps mistakenly, preserved about the loss of her favourite added to the mysterious sadness of her fate. The poor little girl moped and pined, but said nothing. To Hughie her manner was gently reproachful, but nothing more. But all her brightness and playfulness had deserted her; she hung about listless and uninterested, and for some days there was not an hour during which one or other of her doting relations—father, mother, sisters, and brothers—did not make up his or her mind that their darling was smitten by the terrible blast of the fever.

A week, ten days, nearly a fortnight passed, and they began to breathe more freely. Then one day the father, remembering his promise, took Hughie with him to the town to buy a new doll for Janet, instead of her old favourite. I cannot describe to you the one they bought, but I know it was the prettiest that money could get at Linnside, and Hughie came home in great spirits with the treasure in his arms.

“Janet, Janet,” he shouted, as soon as he had jumped off his pony, “where are you, Janet? Come and see what I’ve got for you!”

Janet came slowly out of the study, where she had been lying coiled up on the floor, near the low window, watching for her father’s return.

“I’m here, Hughie,” she said, trying to look interested and bright, though the effort was not very successful.

But Hughie was too excited and eager to notice her manner.

“Look here, Janet,” he exclaimed, unwrapping the paper which covered Miss Dolly. “Now, isn’t she a beauty? Far before that daft-like old Mary Ann; eh, Janet?”

Janet took the new doll in her hands. “She’s bonny,” she said, hesitatingly. “It’s very kind of you, Hughie; but I wish, I wish you hadn’t. I don’t care for her. I dinna mean to vex ye, Hughie,” she continued, sadly, “but I canna help it. I want, oh I do want my ain Mary Ann!”

She put the new doll down on the hall table, burst into tears, and ran away to the nursery.

“She’s just demented about that Mary Ann,” said Hughie to his father, who had followed him into the hall.

“I’m sorry for your disappointment, my boy,” said his father, “but you must not take it to heart. I don’t think wee Janet can be well.”

He was right. What they had so dreaded came at last, just as they had begun to hope that the danger was over. The next morning saw little Janet down with the fever. Ah, then, what sad days of anxiety and watching followed! How softly everybody crept about—a vain precaution, for poor Janet was unconscious of everything about her. How careworn and tear-stained were all the faces of the household—parents, brothers and sisters, and servants! What sad little bulletins, costing sixpence if not a shilling each in those days, children, were sent off by post every day to the absent ones, with the tidings still of “No better,” gradually growing into the still worse, “Very little hope.” It must have been a touching sight to see a whole household so cast down about the fate of one tiny, delicate child.

And poor Hughie was the worst of all. They had tried to keep him separate from his sister, but it was no use. He had managed to creep into the room and kiss her unobserved, and then he had it all his own way—all the harm was done. But he could hardly hear to hear her innocent ravings, they were so often about the lost Mary Ann, and Hughie’s strange cruelty in throwing her away. “I canna think what came over Hughie to do it,” she would say, over and over again. “I want no new dollies I only want Mary Ann.”

Then there came a day on which the doctor said the disease was at its height—a few hours would show on which side the victory was to be; and the anxious faces grew more anxious still, and the silent prayers more frequent. But for many hours of this day Hughie was absent, and the others, in their intense thought about Janet, scarcely missed him. He came home late in the summer evening, with something in his arms, hidden under his jacket. And somehow his face looked more hopeful and happy than for days past.

“How is she?” he asked breathlessly of the first person he met. It was one of the elder sisters.

“Better,” she replied, with the tears in her eyes. “O Hughie, how can we thank God enough? She has wakened quite herself, and the doctor says now there is only weakness to fight against. She has been asking for you, Hughie. You may go up and say good-night. Where have you been all the afternoon?”

But Hughie was already half way up the stairs. He crept into Janet’s room, where the mother was on guard. She made a sign to him to come to the bed where little Janet lay, pale, and thin and fragile, but peaceful and conscious.

“Good-night, wee Janet,” Hughie whispered; “I’m sae glad wee Janet’s better.”

“Good-night, Hughie,” she answered softly.

“Kiss me, Hughie.”

“I’ve some one else here to kiss you, wee Janet,” he said.

Janet looked up inquiringly.

“You must not excite her, Hughie,” the mother whispered. But Hughie knew what he was about. He drew from under his jacket a queer, familiar figure. It was Mary Ann Jolly! There had been no rain, fortunately for her, during her exposure to the weather, and she was sturdy enough to have stood a few showers, even had there been any. She really looked in no way the worse for her adventure, as Hughie laid her gently down on the pillow beside Janet.

“It’s no one to excite her, mother,” he said. “It’s no stranger; only Mary Ann. She’s been away paying a visit to the fairies in the glen, and I think she must have enjoyed it. She’s looking as bonny as ever, and she was in no hurry to come home. I had to shout for her all over the glen before I could make her hear. Are you glad she’s come, Janet?”

Janet’s eyes were glistening. “O Hughie,” she whispered, “kiss me again. I can sleep so well now.”

The crisis no doubt had been passed before this, but still it is certain that Janet’s recovery was faster far than had been expected. And for this she and Hughie, and some of the elder ones, too, I fancy, gave the credit to the return of her favourite. Hughie was well rewarded for his several hours of patient searching in the glen; and I am happy to tell you that he did not catch the fever.

He would have been an elderly, almost an old man by now had he lived—good, kind Hughie. But that was not God’s will for him. He died long ago, in the prime of his youthful manhood; and it is to his little grand-nephews and nieces that wee Janet’s daughter has been telling this simple story of a long-ago little girl, and a long-ago doll, poor old Mary Ann Jolly!

Chapter Six.

Too Bad.

“It is the mynd that maketh good or ill,
That maketh wretch or happie, rich or poore.”

Spenser .

“It’s too bad!” said Miss Judy; “I declare it’s really too bad !” and she came stumping along the road; after her nurse, looking decidedly “put out.”

“It would be something new if it wasn’t too bad with you, Miss Judy, about something or other,” said, nurse coolly.

Miss Judy was a kind-hearted, gentle-mannered little girl. She was pretty and healthy and clever—the sort of child any parents might have been proud of, any brothers and sisters fond of, had not all her niceness been spoiled by one most disagreeable fault. She was always grumbling. The hot days of summer, the cold days of winter, the rain, the wind, the dust, might, to hear her speak, have been expressly contrived to annoy her. When it was fine, and the children were to go out a walk, Miss Judy was sure to have something she particularly wanted to stay in for; when it rained, and the house was evidently the best place for little people, Miss Judy was quite certain to have set her heart upon going out. She grumbled at having to get up, she grumbled at having to go to bed, she grumbled at lessons, she grumbled at play; she could not see that little contradictions and annoyances come to everybody in the world, and that the only way to do is to meet them bravely and sensibly. She really seemed to believe that nobody had so much to bear as she; that on her poor little shoulders all the tiresomenesses and disappointments, and “going the wrong way” of things, were heaped in double, and more than double quantities, and she persuaded herself that everybody she saw was better off in every way than herself, and that no one else had such troubles to bear. So, children, you will not be surprised to hear that poor Miss Judy was not loved or respected as much as some little girls who perhaps really deserved love and respect less. For this ugly disagreeable fault of hers hid all her good qualities; and just as flowers cannot flourish when shaded from the nice bright sun by some rank, wide-spreading weed, so Judy’s pretty blossoms of kindness and unselfishness and truthfulness, which were all really there , were choked and withered by this poisonous habit of grumbling.

I do not really remember what it was she was grumbling at this particular morning. I daresay it was that the roads were muddy, for it was autumn, and Judy’s home was in the country. Or, possibly, it was only that nurse had told her to walk a little quicker, and that immediately her boots began to hurt her, or the place on her heel where once there had been a chilblain got sore, or the elastic of her hat was too loose, and her hat came flopping down on to her face. It might have been any of these things. Whatever it was, it was “too bad.” That , whenever Miss Judy was concerned, you might be quite, quite sure of.

They were returning home from rather a long walk. It was autumn, as I said, and there had been a week or two of almost constant rain, and certainly country lanes are not very pleasant at such times. If Judy had not grumbled so at everything, she might have been forgiven for this special grumble (if it was about the roads), I do think. It was getting chilly and raw, and the clouds looked as if the rain was more than half thinking of turning back on its journey to “Spain,” or wherever it was it had set off to. Nurse hurried on; she was afraid of the little ones in the perambulator catching cold, and she could not spare time to talk to Miss Judy any longer.

Judy came after her slowly; they were just passing some cottages, and at the door of one of them stood a girl of about Judy’s age, with her mouth open, staring at “the little gentry.” She had heard what had passed between Judy and her nurse, and was thinking it over in her own way. Suddenly Judy caught sight of her.

“What are you staring at so?” she said sharply. “It’s too bad of you. You are a rude little girl. I’ll tell nurse how rude you are.”

Judy did not generally speak so crossly, especially not to poor children, for she had really nice feelings about such things, but she was very much put out, and ashamed too, that her ill-natured words to nurse should have been overheard, so she expressed her vexation to the first object that came in her way. The little girl did not leave off staring at her; in fact she did so harder than before. But she answered Judy gently, growing rather red as she did so; and Judy felt her irritation cool.

“I didn’t mean no offence,” she said. “I were just looking at you, and thinking to be sure how nice you had everything, and a wondering how it could be as you weren’t pleased.”

“Who said I wasn’t pleased?” said Judy.

“You said as something was a deal too bad,” replied the child.

“Well, so it was,—it must have been, I mean,—or else I wouldn’t have said so,” answered Judy, who, to tell the truth, had by this time quite forgotten what particular trouble had been the cause of her last grumble. “How do you mean that I have everything so nice?”

“Your things, miss—your jacket and your frock, and all them things. And you live in such a fine house, and has servants to do for you and all. O my! wouldn’t I change with you. Nothing would never be too bad for me if I was you, miss.”

“I daresay you think so,” said Judy importantly, “but that just shows that you don’t know better. I can tell you I have a great, great many troubles and things to bear that you have no idea of. Indeed, I daresay you are far happier than I. You are not bothered about keeping your frocks clean, and not getting your feet wet, and all those horrible things. And about lessons—I daresay you have no trouble at all about lessons. You don’t go to school, do you?”

“Not now, miss. It’s more than six months since I’ve been. Mother’s wanted me so badly to mind baby. Father did say as perhaps I should go again for a bit come Christmas,” answered the little girl, who was growing quite at ease with Judy.

“And do you like going?” said Judy.

“Pretty well, but it’s a long walk—winter time ’specially,” said the child; “not but what most things is hard then to them as lives in places like ours. ’Tisn’t like for you, miss, with lots of fires, and no need for to go out if it’s cold or wet.”

“Indeed I have to go out very often—indeed, always almost when I don’t want,” retorted Judy. “Not that I should mind the walk, to school. I should like it; it would be far nicer than horrid lessons at home, cooped up in the same room all the time, with no change. You don’t understand a bit; I am quite sure you haven’t as many troubles as I.” The little girl smiled, but hardly seemed convinced. “Seems to me, miss, as if you couldn’t hardly know, unless you tried, what things is like in places like ours,” she said.

But before Judy could reply, a voice from inside the cottage called out, “Betsy my girl, what are you about so long? Father’ll be in directly, and there’s the tea to see to.”

The voice was far from unkind, but its effect on Betsy was instantaneous.

“I must go, miss,” she said; “mother’s calling;” and off she ran.

“How nice and funny it must be to set the tea for her father,” thought Judy, as she walked on. “I should like that sort of work. What a silly girl she is not to see how much fewer troubles she has than I. I only wish—”

“ What did you say you wished?” interrupted a voice that seemed to come out of the hedge, so suddenly did its owner appear before Judy.

“I didn’t say I wished anything—at least I didn’t know I was speaking aloud,” said the little girl, as soon as she found voice to reply.

The person who had spoken to her was a little old woman, with a scarlet cloak that nearly covered her. She had a basket on her arm, and looked as if she was returning from market. There was nothing very remarkable about her, and yet Judy felt startled and a little frightened, she did not quite know why.

“I didn’t know I was speaking aloud,” she repeated, staring half timidly at the old woman.

“Didn’t you?” she replied. “Well, now I think of it, I don’t remember saying that you did. There’s more kinds of speaking than with tongue and words. What should you say if I were to tell you what it was you were wishing just now?”

“I don’t know,” said Judy, growing more alarmed “I think, please, I had better run on. Nurse will be wondering where I am.”

“You didn’t think of that when you were standing chattering to little Betsy just now,” said the old woman.

“Did you hear us?” asked Judy, her astonishment almost overcoming her alarm. “Where were you standing? I didn’t see you.”

“I daresay not. There’s many things besides what you see, my dear. For instance, you don’t see why Betsy should think it would be a fine thing to be you, and perhaps Betsy doesn’t see why you should think it would be a fine thing to be in her place instead of in your own.”

Judy’s eyes opened wider and wider. “Did you hear all that?” she exclaimed.

The old woman smiled.

“So you really would like to be Betsy for a change?” she said.

“Not exactly for a change ,” answered Judy. “It isn’t that I am tired of being myself, but I am sure no other little girl in the world has so many troubles; that is why I would rather be Betsy. You have no idea what troubles I have,” she went on, “and I can never do anything I like. It’s always ‘Miss Judy, you must,’ or ‘Miss Judy, you mustn’t,’ all day long. And if ever I am merry for a little, then nurse tells me I shall wake baby. O! he is such a cross baby!”

“And do you think Betsy’s baby brothers and sisters are never cross?” inquired the old woman.

“O no, I daresay they are; but then she’s allowed to scold them and punish them, and I may never say anything, however tiresome the little ones are. If I might put baby in the corner when he is naughty, I would soon cure him. But I may never do anything I want; it’s too bad.”

“Poor thing, poor thing! it is too bad, a great deal too bad. I do feel for you,” said the old woman.

But when Judy looked up at her there was a queer twinkle in her eyes, which made her by no means sure whether she was laughing at her or not. The little girl felt more than half inclined to be affronted, but before she had time to decide the point, the old woman interrupted her.

“Look here, my dear,” she said, lifting up the lid of the basket on her arm; “to show you that I am in earnest, see what I will do for you. Here is a nice rosy-cheeked apple; put it into your pocket, and don’t let any one see it, and when you are in bed at night, if you are still of the same mind about being Betsy instead of yourself, just take a bite of the apple, then turn round and go to sleep, and in the morning you shall see what you shall see.”

Half hesitatingly, Judy put out her hand for the apple.

“Thank you very much,” she said, “but—”

“But what?” said the old woman rather sharply.

“Must I always be Betsy, if I try being her?”

“Bless the child, what will she have?” exclaimed the old woman. “No, you needn’t go on being Betsy if you don’t want. Keep the apple, take care you don’t lose it, and when you’ve had enough of a change, take another bite. But after that, remember the apple can do no more for you.”

“I daresay I shall not want it to do anything for me once I have left off being myself,” said Judy. “Oh, how nice it will be not to have nurse ordering me about all day long, and not to be bothered about keeping my frock clean, and to have no lessons!”

“I’m glad you’re pleased,” said the old woman. “Now, good-bye; you won’t see me again till you want me.”

“Good-bye, and thank”—“Thank you very much,” she was going to have said, holding out her hand as she spoke—for remember she was not a rude or ill-mannered little girl by any means—but, lo and behold, there was nobody there! the old woman had disappeared! Judy rubbed her eyes, and stared about her in every direction, but there was nothing to be seen—nothing, that is to say, in the least like an old woman, only some birds hopping about quite unconcernedly, and a tiny field-mouse, who peeped up at Judy for an instant with its bright little eyes, and then scurried off to its hole.

It was growing late and dusk, the mists were creeping up from the not far distant sea, and the hills were thinking of putting on their night-caps, and retiring from view. Judy felt a little strange and “eerie,” as she stood there alone in the lane. She could almost have fancied she had been dreaming, but there was the rosy-cheeked apple in her hand, proof positive to the contrary. So Judy decided that the best thing she could do was to run home as fast as she could, and consider at her leisure if she should make use of the little old woman’s gift.

It was nearly dark when she reached the garden gate—at least the trees on each side of the carriage-drive made it seem so. Judy had never been out so late alone before, and she felt rather frightened as to what nurse would say. The side door was open, so she ran in, and went straight up to the nursery. Just as she got upstairs she met nurse, her shawl and bonnet on, her kind old face looking hot and anxious. At sight of the truant she stopped short.

“So there you are, Miss Judy,” she exclaimed; “and a nice fright you’ve given me. It’s my turn to speak about ‘too bad’ now , I think. It really was too bad of you to stay behind like that, and me never thinking but what you were close behind till this moment; at least, that you had come in close behind, and had stayed down in the drawing-room for a little. You’ve frightened me out of my wits, you naughty child; and if only your mamma was at home, I would go straight down-stairs, and tell her it’s more than I can put up with.”

“It’s more than I can put up with to be scolded so for nothing,” said Judy crossly, and with a tone in her voice new to her, and which rather took nurse aback. She had not meant to be harsh to the child, but she had been really frightened, and, as is often the case, on finding there had been no cause for her alarm, a feeling of provocation took its place.

“You should not speak so, Miss Judy,” she said quietly, for she was wise enough not to wish to irritate the little girl, whom she truly loved, further.

But Judy was not to be so easily pacified.

“It’s too bad,” she began as usual; “it’s a great deal too bad, that I should never be allowed to do the least thing I want; to be scolded so for nothing at all—just staying out for two or three minutes;” and she “banged about” the nursery, dragging her hat off, and kicking her boots into the corner in an extremely indignant manner.

Nurse felt much distressed. To Judy’s grumbling she was accustomed, but this was worse than grumbling. “What can have come over the child?” she said to herself, but to Judy she thought it best to say nothing at all. All through tea Judy looked far from amiable; she hardly spoke, though a faint “Too bad” was now and then heard from her direction. Poor nurse had not a very pleasant time of it, for the “cross” infection spread, as, alas! it is too apt to do, and little Lena, Judy’s four-years’-old sister, grew peevish and discontented, and pinched Master Baby, in return for which he, as was to be expected, set up a dismal howl.

“Naughty, horrid little things!” said Judy. “If I had my way with them, they should both be whipped and put to bed.”

“Hush, Miss Judy!” said nurse. “If you would be pleasant and help to amuse them, they would not be so cross.”

“I’ve something else to do than to amuse such ill-natured little things,” said Judy.

“Well I should think it was time you learnt your lessons for to-morrow,” said nurse. “We’ve had tea so late, it will soon be time for you to be dressed to go down to the drawing-room to your papa. There are some gentlemen dining with him to-night.”

“I can’t bear going down when mamma’s away,” said Judy. “It’s too bad of her to go away and leave us.”

“For shame, Miss Judy, to speak so, when you know that it’s only because your poor aunt is so ill that your mamma had to go away. Now get your books, there’s a good girl, and do your lessons.”

“I’m not going to do them,” said Judy, with sudden resolution. “I needn’t unless I like. I don’t think I shall ever do any more. It’s too bad I should never have a minute of time to myself.”

Nurse really began to think the little girl must be going to be ill. Never, in all her experience of her, had she known her so cross. It was the same all the evening. Judy grumbled and stormed at everything; she would not stand still to have her hair brushed, or her pretty white muslin frock fastened; and when she came upstairs she was more ill pleased than before, because, just as she was beginning to amuse herself with some pictures, her papa told her he thought it was time for little girls to be in bed. How often, while she was being undressed, she declared that something or other was “too bad,” I really could not undertake to say. She grumbled at her nice warm bath, she grumbled at her hair being combed out, she grumbled at having to go to bed when she wasn’t “the least bit sleepy,” she grumbled at everything and everybody, herself, included, for she came to the resolution that she really would not be herself any longer! No sooner had nurse and the candle left the room than Judy drew out the apple, which, while nurse was not looking, she had managed to hide under her pillow, took a good big bite of it, turned round on her side, and, notwithstanding that her little heart was beating much faster than usual, half with excitement, half with fear, at what she had done, in two minutes she was sound asleep.

“Betsy, Betsy girl, it’s time you were stirring. Up with you, child; you must look sharp.”

What voice was that? who could it be, shouting so loudly, and waking her up in the middle of the night? Judy for a moment felt very indignant, but she was extremely sleepy, and determined to think she was dreaming; so she turned round, and was just dozing off, when again she heard the cry:

“Betsy, Betsy, wake up with thee. Whatever’s come to the child this morning?”

The voice seemed to come nearer and nearer, and at last a thump on the wall, close to Judy’s head, it seemed to her, fairly startled her awake.

“Up with thee, child,” sounded close to her ear. “Baby’s been that cross all night I’ve had scarce a wink o’ sleep. Thee mustn’t lie snoring there.”

Suddenly all returned to Judy’s memory. She was not herself; she was Betsy.

“I’m coming,” she called out, hardly knowing what she was saying; and then the person on the other side of the wall seemed to be satisfied, for Judy now heard her walking about, clattering fire-irons and pots and pans, evidently employed in tidying the kitchen.

It was still what Judy thought quite dark. She had some idea of calling for a light, but whom to call to she did not know. So, feeling very strange and rather frightened, she got timidly out of bed, and by the little light that came in at the small square window, began to look about her. What a queer little place it was! Not a room really, only a sort of “lean-to” at one side of the kitchen, barely large enough for the narrow, rickety little bedstead, and one old chair that stood beside it, answering several purposes besides its proper one, for on it was placed a cracked basin and jug, and a tiny bit of looking-glass, without a frame, fastened by a piece of string to the only remaining bar. Betsy’s clothes lay in the bed, which was but poorly provided with proper blankets—the sheets were clean—everything in the place was as clean as poverty can be, and indeed Betsy was, and considered herself to be, a very fortunate little girl for having a “room” of her own at all; but to Judy, Judy who had had no training like Betsy’s, Judy who found every crumple in a rose leaf “too bad,” Judy who knew as little of other people’s lives and other people’s troubles as the man in the moon,—you can fancy, my dears, how the room of which little Betsy was so proud looked to Judy ! But she had a spirit of her own, ready though she was to grumble. With a little shiver, she began to try to dress herself in the well-mended clothes, so different from her own daintily-trimmed little garments—for washing she felt to be out of the question; it was really too cold, and besides there were no soap, or sponges, or towels to be seen.

“I don’t care,” she said to herself stoutly, as she wriggled first into one garment and then into another. “I don’t care. Any way I shall have no lessons to learn, and I shall not be bothered about keeping my frock clean. But I do wish the fairy had left me my own hair,” she went on regretfully, examining the thick dark locks that hung round her face, and kept tumbling into her eyes, “my hair is much nicer. I don’t believe Betsy ever has hers properly brushed, it is so tuggy. And what brown hands I’ve got, and such crooked nails. I wonder if Betsy’s mother will cut them for me; I wonder if—”

She was interrupted by another summons.

“Betsy, girl, what are you after this morning? I be getting downright cross with you, child. There’s father’ll be back for breakfast directly, and you not helped me by a hand’s turn this blessed morning.” Judy started. She only stopped to fasten the last button of her little dark cotton frock, and calling out, “I’m coming,” opened the rough door of the little bed-room, and found herself in the kitchen. There sat Betsy’s mother, with the baby on her knee, and the baby but one tumbling about at her feet, while she vainly tried to fasten the frock of another little fellow of three, who sturdily refused to stand still.

“You must finish dressing Jock,” she said, on catching sight of Judy; “Jock’s a naughty boy, won’t stand still for mammy to dress him; naughty Jock,” she continued, giving him a little shake as she got up, which sent him howling across the room to Judy. “It’s too bad of you, Betsy, to be so lazy this morning, and me so tired with no sleep, and the little ones all crying; if I tell father he’ll be for giving it thee, lass, to make thee stir about a bit quicker.”

“He’ll give me what ?” said Judy, perplexed. “I don’t understand.”

“Hold thy tongue; I’ll have none of that answering back, child,” said Betsy’s mother, tired and out of patience, poor woman, though you must not think she was either harsh or unkind, for she was a very kind, good mother.

“Jock, let me dress you,” said Judy, turning to the little boy, with a vague idea that it would be rather amusing to act nurse to him. Jock came towards her willingly enough, but Judy found the business less easy than she had expected. There was a button missing on his little petticoat, which she did not find out in time to prevent her fastening it all crooked; and when she tried to undo it again, Jock’s patience was exhausted, and he went careering round the kitchen, Judy after him, till the mother in despair caught hold of him, and completed the task.

“Your fingers seem to be all thumbs this morning,” she said testily. “You’ve not swep’ up a bit, nor made th’ fire, nor nothing. Go and fetch water now to fill th’ kettle, or father’ll be in afore it’s on the boil.”

Judy turned to the fireplace, and, with some difficulty, managed to lug the heavy old kettle as far as the front door. Just outside stood the pump, but try as she might she could not get the water to flow. She was ready to cry with vexation, pumping had always seemed such nice easy work; she had often watched the children of these very cottages filling their kettles and jugs, and had envied them the fun; but now when she had it to do she found it very different— very poor fun, if indeed fun at all! At last she got the water to begin to come, a poor miserable little trickle; at this rate the kettle would never be filled, and her tears were preparing to descend, when a rough hearty voice made her jump. It was Betsy’s father.

“Pump’s stiff this morning, is it, my lass?” he called out as he came up the path. “Let’s have a hand at it;” and with his vigorous pull the water quickly appeared. He lifted the kettle into the kitchen, greatly to Judy’s relief; but Betsy’s mother took a different view of the matter.

“I don’t know what’s come to Betsy this morning,” she said. “Lazy’s no word for her. The porridge is ready, but there’ll be no time to make thee a cup of coffee, father. She’s been close upon a quarter of an hour filling the kettle, and baby’s so cross this morning I can’t put her down.”

“I must make my breakfast of porridge then,” said the father; “but Betsy, girl, it’s new for thee to be lazy, my lass.”

Judy felt humbled and mortified, but she said nothing. Somehow she felt as if she could not defend herself, though she knew she had honestly done her best. The words “too bad” rose to her lips, but she did not utter them. She began to wonder how little Betsy managed to get through her daily tasks, easy as she had imagined them to be.

The porridge was not much to her taste, but she tried to eat it. Perhaps it was not so much the porridge itself, for it was good of its kind, which took away her appetite, as the want of the many little things to which she was so accustomed that their absence made her for the first time think of them at all. The nice white tablecloth and silver spoons on the nursery table, the neat, pretty room, and freshly dressed little brothers and sisters—all were very different from the rough board, and the pewter spoons, and Betsy’s father and big brothers hurriedly devouring the great bowls of porridge, while the three little ones cried or quarrelled incessantly. “After all,” thought Judy, “perhaps it is a good thing to have rather a strict nurse, even if she is very fussy about being neat and all that.”

But yet she felt very sorry for Betsy’s mother, when she looked at her thin, careworn face, and noticed how patient she was with the babies, and how cheerfully she answered all “father’s” remarks. And there began to dawn in the little girl’s mind a faint idea that perhaps there were troubles and difficulties in the world such as she had never dreamt of, that there are a good many “too bads” in other people’s lots as well as in Miss Judy’s.

Breakfast over, her troubles began again. It was washing-day, and just as she was looking forward to a ramble in the fields in glorious independence of nurse’s warnings about spoiling her frock, her dreams were put an end to by Betsy’s mother’s summoning her to take her place at the tub. And oh, my dears, real washing is very different work from the dolls’ laundressing—standing round a wash-hand basin placed on a nursery chair, and wasting ever so much beautiful honey-soap in nice clean hot water, and then when the little fat hands are all “crumply” and puffy “like real washerwomen’s,” rinsing out the miniature garments in still nicer clean cold water, and hanging them round the nursery guard to dry, and most likely ending up by coaxing nurse to clear away all the mess you have made, and to promise to let you iron dolly’s clean clothes the next wet afternoon—which you think so delightful. Judy’s arms ached sorely, sorely, and her head ached too, and she felt all steamy and hot and weary, when at last her share of it was over, and, “for a change,” she was instructed to take the two youngest out for a walk up the lane, while mother boiled the potatoes for dinner.

The babies were very tiresome, and though Judy was quite at liberty to manage them in her own way, and to punish them as she had never ventured to punish Lena and Harry at home, she did not find it of much use. She wondered “how ever the real Betsy did;” and I fancy the babies too wondered a good deal in their own way as to what had come over their big sister to-day. Altogether the walk was very far from a pleasure to any of the three, and when at last Judy managed to drag her weary self, and her two hot, cross little charges home again to the cottage, she was by no means in an amiable humour. She would have liked to sit down and rest, and she would have liked to wash her face and hands, and brush her hair—Judy who at home always grumbled at nurse’s summons to “come and be tidied”—but there was no time for anything of the kind. Dinner—the potatoes, that is to say—was ready, and the table must be set at once, ready for father and the boys, and Betsy’s mother told her to “look sharp and bustle about,” in a way that Judy felt to be really a great deal “too bad.” She was hungry, however, and ate her share of potatoes, flavoured with a little dripping and salt, with more appetite than she had sometimes felt for roast mutton and rice pudding, though all the same she would have been exceedingly glad of a little gravy, or even of a plateful of sago pudding, which generally was by no means a favourite dish of hers.

“Me and the boys won’t be home till late,” said the father, as he rose to go; “there’s a piece o’ work master wants done this week, and he’ll pay us extray to stay a couple of hours. Betsy must bring us our tea.”

Judy’s spirits rose. She would have a walk by herself any way, unplagued by babies, and the idea of it gave her some patience for the afternoon’s task of darning stockings, which she found was expected of her. Just at first the darning was rather amusing, but after a while she began to be sadly tired of it. It was very different from sitting still for a quarter of an hour, with nurse patiently instructing her, and praising her whenever she did well; these stockings were so very harsh and coarse, and the holes were so enormous, and the basketful so huge!

“I’ll never get them done,” she exclaimed at last. “I think it’s too bad to make a little girl like me or Betsy do such hard work; and I think her father and brothers must make holes in their horrid stockings on purpose, I do. I’ll not do any more.”

She shoved the basket into a corner, and looked about for amusement. The babies were asleep, and Jock was playing in a corner, and mother, poor body, was still busy in the wash-house—Judy could find nothing to play with. There were no books in the cottage, except an old Farmers’ Almanac , a Bible and Prayer-book, and one or two numbers of a People’s Miscellany , which Judy looked into, but found she could not understand. How she wished for some of her books at home! Even those she had read two or three times through, and was always grumbling at in consequence, would have been a great treasure; even a history or geography book would have been better than nothing.

Suddenly the clock struck, and Betsy’s mother called out from the wash-house,—

“It’s three o’clock—time for you to be going with the tea. Set the kettle on, Betsy, and I’ll come and make it and cut the bread. It’ll take you more nor half-an-hour to walk to Farmer Maxwell’s where they’re working this week.”

Judy was staring out of the window. “It’s beginning to rain,” she said dolefully.

“Well, what if it is,” replied Betsy’s mother, “Father and boys can’t want their tea because it’s raining. Get thy old cloak, child. My goodness me!” she went on, as she came into the kitchen, “she hasn’t got the kettle on yet? Betsy, it’s too bad of thee, it is for sure; there’s not a thing but what’s been wrong to-day.”

Judy’s conscience pricked her about the stockings, so, without attempting to defend herself, she fetched the old cloak she had seen hanging in Betsy’s room, and, drawing the hood over her head, stood meekly waiting, while the mother cut the great hunches of bread, made the tea, and poured it into the two tin cans, which the little girl was to carry to the farm.

It did not rain much when she first set off, so though it was a good two miles’ walk, she was only moderately wet when she got to the farm. One of the boys was on the look-out for her, or rather for their tea, which he at once took possession of and ran off with, advising Judy to make haste home, it was going to rain like blazes. But poor Judy found it no easy matter to follow his counsel; her arms were still aching with the weight of the baby in the morning, and her wrist was chafed with the handle of one of the tin pails, which she could not manage otherwise to carry, the old cloak was poor protection against the driving rain, and, worst of all, Betsy’s old boots had several holes in them, and a sharp stone had made its way through the sole of the left one, cutting and hurting her foot. She stumbled along for some way, feeling very miserable, till at last, quite unable to go farther, she sat down under the hedge, and burst into tears.

“So you haven’t found things quite so pleasant as you expected, eh, Miss Judy? You don’t find walking in Betsy’s shoes quite such an easy matter after all?” said a voice at her side; and, looking up, lo and behold! there, standing before her, Judy saw the old woman with the scarlet cloak.

“I don’t think it is kind of you to laugh at me,” she sobbed.

“It’s ‘too bad,’ is it, eh, Miss Judy?”

Judy sobbed more vigorously, but did not answer.

“Come, now,” said the old woman kindly. “Let’s talk it over quietly. Are you beginning to understand that other people’s lives have troubles and difficulties as well as yours—that little Betsy, for instance, might find things ‘too bad’ a good many times in the course of the day, if she was so inclined?”

“Yes,” said Judy humbly.

“And on the whole,” continued the fairy, “you would rather be yourself than any one else—eh, Miss Judy?”

“Oh yes, yes, a great deal rather,” said Judy eagerly. “Mayn’t I be myself again now this very minute, and go home to tea in the nursery? Oh, I would so like! It seems ever so long since I saw Lena and Harry and nurse, and you said yesterday I needn’t keep on being Betsy if I didn’t like.”

“Not quite so fast, my dear,” said the old woman. “It’s only four o’clock; you must finish the day’s work. Go back to the cottage and wait patiently till bed-time, and then—you know what to do—you haven’t lost your apple?”

“No,” said Judy, feeling in her pocket. “I have it safe.”

“That’s all right. Now jump up, my dear, and hasten home, or Betsy’s mother will be wondering what has become of you.”

Judy got up slowly. “I’m so wet,” she said, “and oh! my foot’s so sore. These horrible boots! I think it’s too—”

“Hush!” said the fairy. “How would you like me to make you stay as you are, till you quite leave off that habit of grumbling. I’m not sure but what it would be a good thing for her,” she added, consideringly, as if thinking aloud.

“O no, please don’t,” said Judy, “please, please don’t. I do beg your pardon; I didn’t mean to say it, and I won’t say it any more.”

“Then off with you; your foot won’t be so bad as you think,” said the fairy.

“Thank you,” replied Judy, fancying already that it hurt her less. She had turned to go when she stopped.

“Well,” said the old woman, “what’s the matter now?”

“Nothing,” answered Judy, “but only I was thinking, if I am myself again to-morrow morning, and Betsy’s herself, what will they all think? nurse and all, I mean; and if I try to explain, I’m sure they’ll never believe me—they’ll say I’m talking nonsense. Nurse always says ‘rubbish’ if we make up fairy stories, or anything like that.”

The old woman smiled curiously.

“Many wiser people than nurse think that ‘rubbish’ settles whatever they don’t understand,” she said. “But never you mind, Judy. You needn’t trouble your head about what any one will think. No one ever will be the wiser but you and I. When Betsy wakes in her own little bed in the morning, she will only think she has had a curious dream—a dream, perhaps, which will do her no harm—and nurse will think nothing but that Miss Judy has been cured of grumbling in a wonderful way. For if you’re not cured it will be my turn to say it’s too bad!—will it not?”

“Yes,” said Judy, laughing. “Thank you so much, kind fairy. Won’t you come and see me again sometimes?”

But the last words were spoken to the air, for while Judy was uttering them the old woman had disappeared, and only the little field-mouse again, with bright sparkling eyes, ran across the path, looking up fearlessly at Judy as it passed her.

And Judy never did see the old woman again. She went back to the cottage, bearing bravely the pain of her wounded foot, which was not so very bad after all, and the discomfort of her wet clothes.

And though Betsy’s mother scolded her for having been so slow about her errand, she did not grumble or complain, but did her best to help the poor woman with the evening’s work. All the same, I can tell you, she was very glad to get to bed at night, and you may be sure she did not forget to take a great big bite of her apple.

“When I am myself again, I’ll spend the six shillings I have in my money-box to buy Betsy a nice new print frock instead of that ugly old one that got so soaked to-day,” was her last thought before she fell asleep.

And oh! my dears, can you imagine how delightful it was to find herself in the morning, her real own self again? She felt it was almost too good to be true. And, since then, it has been seldom if ever, that Miss Judy has been heard to grumble, or that anything has been declared to be “too bad.”

Chapter Seven.

Charlie’s Disappointment.

“O sweet and blessed country
That eager hearts expect.”

One cold winter’s evening about Christmas time, Charlie, a little boy of six years old, sat reading with his mother. It was Sunday evening, and he had been looking at the pictures in his “Children’s Bible,” till his mother put down her own book and began to read verses to him out of his real Bible, in explanation of some of the pictures. With one of these especially, Charlie was very much pleased. It represented a great many people, men and women and children, and animals of every kind, all together, looking very peaceful and happy in a beautiful garden. Charlie could not pronounce the word at the foot of the picture; it was so very long.

“The—what is it, mother?” he asked.

“The Millennium,” his mother told him, and then she went on to explain what this long word meant, and read him some strange, beautiful verses about it, out of the big Bible. Charlie sat with his blue eyes fixed on her, listening to every word, and thinking this the most wonderful story he had ever heard yet. “And it is not like a fairy story, is it mother, for it is in the Bible? Oh, I do so wish God would let the millennium come now—immediately—mother, while I am a little boy, and you, just like what you are! I should not care nearly so much for it if you were old, mother, or if I was a big man.”

“I hope, my darling, the bigger you get the more you will care for it,” said his mother. Charlie looked puzzled, but seeing that he was thinking so deeply, that she feared he would think away his sleep (as he sometimes did, and it was nearly bed-time), she went to the piano and sang his favourite hymn—

“Jerusalem the golden,
With milk and honey blest.”

Charlie listened with delight; and when it was over went and kissed his mother for good-night, and trotted off to bed, his mind full of the words he had been hearing.

It felt cold at first, in his little crib, and he began thinking how nice it would be if the summer were back again. But he soon fell asleep. It seemed to him that he woke almost in a minute, and he felt surprised to see that there was already broad daylight in the room. Indeed, he felt exceedingly surprised, for these dark winter mornings he always woke before dawn, and now the sun was shining brightly, as if it had been at work for some hours. It looked so pleasant and cheerful that he lay still to enjoy it. Now I must tell you that Charlie had a baby brother, and that both these little boys were taken care of by a good old woman who had been nurse to their mother when she was a little girl. Nurse was very good and kind and true, but I must say that sometimes she was very cross. Perhaps it was that she was getting old, and that little boys teased her, not being always able to remember about being gentle and good: that is to say, Charlie himself, for the baby was really too little either to remember or forget. Nurse’s worst time was first thing in the morning; she nearly always had a cross face on when she came to wake Charlie, and to tell him to get up. He once heard some of the servants saying that nurse very often got out of the wrong side of her bed; and that day he vexed her very much without knowing why, for, after thinking a long time about what it could mean, he went all round her bed to see if there could be any nails or sharp pieces of wood sticking out at one side, which perhaps hurt her feet as she stepped out. Nurse came in while he was examining her bed, and when he told her what he was doing, and what he had heard Anne say, she was really very angry indeed, though he could not see that he had done anything naughty.

But this morning I am telling you about that Charlie lay in bed thinking how pretty the sunlight was, he was quite surprised to see nurse’s face when she came to the bedside to wake him. She spoke so sweetly, and really looked quite pretty. Her face had such a nice smile and looked so kind, and nearly all the wrinkles were gone.

“Dear nurse,” he said, “how nice you look!” This seemed to please her still more, for she kissed him, and then washed and dressed him, without once pulling or pushing him the least little bit; just as if she had never felt cross in her life.

When he was dressed he ran out into the garden, and, to his surprise, it was quite changed from the night before. The grass was bright and green, the trees were all covered with leaves, and the whole garden was full of the loveliest flowers he had ever seen; and the singing of the birds was prettier than he could possibly describe. There were many butterflies and other summer insects flying about, and making a delicious sort of sweet humming, which seemed to join in with the birds’ singing. Indeed Charlie could almost have believed the flowers themselves were singing, for a lovely music filled the whole air, and all the musicians, even the grasshoppers, kept in tune together in a wonderful way. The song sounded to Charlie very like “Jerusalem the Golden,” only there were no words. He ran about the garden so much, that at last he thought he would like a drink of new milk, and he went into the yard to look for the dairy-maid. There was no one there; but he forgot all about the milk, in astonishment at what he saw. “Tiger,” the great fierce watch dog, whom his papa would never let him go near, was unchained, lying peacefully on his back in the sun, and Charlie’s two lovely kittens rolling over and over him, Tiger patting them gently with his paws, and looking so pleased that Charlie almost thought he was smiling. And more wonderful still, his mother’s pet canaries were also loose in the yard, one hopping about close to Tiger’s nose, and the other actually perched on the back of Muff, the tabby cat, whom, all her life, his mother had never succeeded in curing of her sad love of eating canary birds. Charlie’s first thought was to drive away Muff and rescue the birds; but as he ran forward to do so, Muff came and rubbed herself gently against him with a soft, sweet purr, and the canary flew off Muff’s back on to his shoulder, where it gave a little trill of pleasure, and then flew back again to its friend the cat. Suddenly some words flashed into Charlie’s mind: “They shall neither hurt nor destroy,” he said slowly, and then it all seemed plain to him. “The Millennium has come,” he cried, with inexpressible joy, “Oh! how glad I am; I must run and tell mother this minute,” and off he set. But as he ran towards the house, glancing up, thoughtful for others as was his habit, to the window of his mother’s room, he saw that the blind was still drawn down, and remembered that he must not disturb her yet, though his little heart was bursting with impatience to tell her the beautiful news. “I might, any way, run and tell Lily at once,” thought he, and he set off at full speed towards the farm where his little friend lived. But he had not gone half way when he recollected that to get to Lily’s home he must pass the smithy, a place he was frightened to go near even with his nurse, for Black Tom, the smith, was a very terrible person. He was often intoxicated, and used then to swear most awfully; and, indeed, Lily had once told Charlie in confidence that her nurse had said she felt pretty sure Black Tom would not think anything at all of eating little boys and girls. Dreadful as he thought him, Charlie could not believe that Black Tom was quite as wicked as this; but still he trembled as he drew near the smithy. But how amazed he felt, when he got within sight of it, to see Tom standing at the door, washed and brushed up to such an extent, that the child hardly recognised his old aversion!

Tom’s employment was more wonderful still. He was playing with Lily, who was sitting perched upon his shoulder, laughing and screaming with delight. As soon as she saw Charlie she slid down, and holding Tom’s great rough hand in her tiny one, pulled him along the lane towards her little friend.

“Tom is not exactly a bear or a lion,” thought Charlie, with a somewhat misty recollection of one of the verses his mother had read to him, running in his head; “but he’s quite as fierce, and it says ‘A little child shall lead them.’”

“O Charlie!” exclaimed Lily, when she drew near, “Tom is so good. I have been riding on his back up and down the lane ever so long, and do look what a nice, pretty clean face he has got!”

But Charlie felt so eager to explain to Lily what he knew to be the cause of this extraordinary transformation, that he could not wait to speak to Tom.

“Come along the lane with me Lily,” he said, “I have wonderful things to tell you.”

So the two trotted off together, Tom smiling after them. A little up the lane the music of the birds and insects, and flowers, which Charlie had been hearing all the morning, sounded clearer and fuller than ever; and somehow Lily seemed to know of herself, without his telling her, all about the Millennium having come, even though she was such a little girl, only five years old.

“Isn’t the music beautiful, Lily? Don’t you think it is ‘Jerusalem the Golden?’”

“ I have been thinking all the morning that it was ‘There is a happy land,’” replied she, “but look, Charlie, at that great white thing coming along the road.” Just where they had got to, the lane ran into the highway, and looking where Lily pointed, Charlie saw the great white thing she spoke of, moving towards them. As it came nearer they saw that it was a crowd of children, of all ages and sizes, dressed alike in pure white, which shone in the sun as they marched along. They sang as they walked, and Charlie thought he heard the words—

“For ever and for ever,
Are clad in robes of white.”

One little boy, somewhat in advance of the others, as soon as he caught sight of Charlie and Lily, ran forward to meet them, and Charlie saw that it was his friend, little Frank Grey, the miller’s son.

“O Charlie!” he exclaimed, “are you there already? We were coming to fetch you and Lily. You must come with us.”

“Where are you going to?” said Charlie.

“Don’t you know?” said Frank. “We are all going to meet the Prince, who is coming this morning to live among us.”

“The Prince of Wales, do you mean?” asked Charlie.

“O no!” replied his friend, “a greater Prince than he is. The Prince of the Golden City.”

“Is that the same as ‘Jerusalem the Golden,’ do you think?”

“I daresay it is,” said Frank, “but the Prince has a great many names, each more beautiful than the other. Some call him the ‘Prince of Peace.’”

“I know that name,” said little Lily, softly, “it is very pretty.”

“But,” said Charlie, “you are all so beautifully dressed. Lily and I must run home for our best frocks first.”

“O no!” said Frank, “you are just as nicely dressed as we are.” And Charlie looked down at his own clothes and Lily’s, and saw to his surprise that both their dresses were of pure shining white, like those of the other children. It puzzled him a good deal, for he felt sure he remembered his nurse putting on his little plaid stuff coat and brown holland pinafore that morning. But a new thought struck him. “Don’t you think, Frank, I had better run home and tell mother, for fear she should not like me to go?”

“O no!” again answered Frank; “she is sure to let you go, for all the boys and girls in the country are coming, and we have several more to call for still; besides the fathers and mothers themselves will soon be coming after us in another procession, so you will see your mother directly.”

Quite happy now, Charlie and Lily joined the children, marching all in twos and twos, keeping time to the music they were singing, which Charlie felt sure was “Jerusalem the Golden,” though Lily would sing “Happy Land,” for all he could say to her. However, it did not matter, for it seemed to do just as well, and all their voices suited beautifully. They went on as happily as could be, not feeling the least tired, though it was a good way. Charlie was turning to ask Frank some more questions about the Prince they were going to meet, when he was startled by some one calling him from behind, “Charlie! Charlie!” the voice sounding rather sharply, and seeming to jar against the sweet singing. He looked round, and there, hastening after him was nurse, with, alas! her old face on, not the pretty new one. She came on quickly, and soon reached him, catching him rather roughly by the arm. Charlie gave a cry of distress, and—woke! to find himself, poor little boy, in his crib on a dull gloomy winter morning, and nurse shaking him a little, to wake him, and speaking very crossly. It was too much. Six years could not bear the terrible contrast, and little Charlie sat up in bed and burst into tears.

“Oh, it’s not true, it’s not true,” he cried, and nurse looked crosser than before.

“The child’s going out of his mind!” exclaimed she, vainly endeavouring to stop his tears. His little heart bursting with sorrow, poor Charlie got slowly out of bed, and sitting down on the floor, shaking with sobs and cold, began to try to put on his socks. But just then a tap came to the door, and a voice said, “Is that my Charlie crying, first thing on a Monday morning?” And Charlie jumped up and ran, all shaking and shivering, to his nice warm mother, who took him in her arms and carried him off just as he was, to dress him in her own room, where there was a beautiful fire; and there poor Charlie told his story. He could not help crying again when he came to the end and tried to describe his bitter disappointment. His mother did not speak, and he began to fear she was displeased; but when he looked up in her face, and saw tears in her pretty kind eyes, he knew she was not vexed with him.

“My poor dear little boy,” she said, and then she comforted him so sweetly that the tears went away. And after breakfast she talked to Charlie again about the Millennium, and explained about it a little more, to him. She said he must not be unhappy because his dream was not true, for she thought it was a beautiful dream, and there was one way in which he might make it true. Little boy though he was, there need be no delay in his welcoming the Prince of Peace into the country of his own heart, and year by year devoting himself more and more earnestly to that blessed service, till in God’s own good time he should be one of the happy dwellers in the “Golden City” above.

So that, after all, Charlie’s wonderful dream did not remain the source of sorrow and disappointment to him. And I think it was one of the things that helped him to grow up a good man, for he never forgot it. One special good result it had, I know. It roused an interest in Black Tom, whom every one had feared and hated, and no one had ever tried to love, which never rested till gradually, and by slow degrees, the poor smith became a very different being from the fierce man who had been the terror of Charlie’s childhood.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tell Me a Story

Mrs Molesworth

"Tell me a Story"

Chapter One.

Introduction.