"Goodness!" cried half a dozen of them, "it's Aunt Fanny! Did you ever?" And thereupon they charged like a company of cadets going to fire on the run, and shot Aunt Fanny with a whole volley of kisses.
It was really a wonder she looked so well after it; fifty kisses in a minute is pretty severe loving; but Aunt Fanny only laughed when she could catch her breath, and, taking Minnie on her lap, asked what particular fun and mischief they had been about lately.
Then didn't they have a grand time, telling about their journey? and the wonderful fairy adventures of Charley? And Charley, who was sitting leaning against his mother, declared that he could not have dreamt them, because he remembered them all so well, and he had felt so much better ever since the beautiful fairy Queen had taken him in charge.
"Why," cried Aunt Fanny, "I shall have to go back to Idlewild, where I passed two delightful hours this morning, right away, and tell all this to the lovely children I saw there. I am sure Edith, and Daisy, and sweet little Bailey, would go straightway down to their beautiful Glen, to hunt up the fairies that no doubt live there hidden under the ferns and mosses, so fairily fine and delicate.
"O Aunt Fanny!" cried the children, "do tell us about Idlewild and dear little Edith, and Daisy, and Bailey Idlewild."
"That is not the name of the children, you monkeys," said Aunt Fanny, laughing, "any more than you are Harry and Minnie Nightcap. It is the fanciful, dreamily sweet name of the place; and the pure life and neighborly love ever adorning and brightening that graceful and kindly house-roof, make June sunshine all over the lovely place the year round."
"Ah! how delightful it must be," cried the children; "do tell us, Aunt Fanny, all about your visit."
"Well, to begin at the beginning, I went up to Cornwall upon some business, and I staid all night at a house just this side of the beautiful Idlewild Glen. In the evening I was invited to go to a Sunday-school cele bration; I was very glad to get this invitation, because I love children so much. The services were all very interesting, but the best thing of all was a most beautiful story which was told, to prove the blessed effect of love upon the heart, and how much better it was to govern by love, than by fear and continual punishment."
"We know that!" exclaimed the children, "that's the very way mother governs us—don't you, mamma?" and they all had to give her a kiss before they said, "Please go on, Aunt Fanny; do tell us the story."
"The teacher said it was true, every word of it, but I do not know whether he got it out of a book, or whether it happened to some children he knew; perhaps you have read it already."