So saying, he shut the door and went out. I cannot tell you how puzzled I was to make out what my father meant by his aphorism. But I know that I played at dominos no more that day. The next morning my father found me seated by myself under a tree in the garden; he paused, and looked at me with his grave bright eyes very steadily.
“My boy,” said he, “I am going to walk to ——,” a town about two miles off: “will you come? And, by the by, fetch your domino-box. I should like to show it to a person there.” I ran in for the box, and, not a little proud of walking with my father upon the high-road, we set out.
“Papa,” said I by the way, “there are no fairies now.”
“What then, my child?”
“Why, how then can my domino-box be changed into a geranium and a blue-and-white flower-pot?”
“My dear,” said my father, leaning his hand on my shoulder, “everybody who is in earnest to be good, carries two fairies about with him,—one here,” and he touched my heart, “and one here,” and he touched my forehead.
“I don’t understand, papa.”
“I can wait till you do, Pisistratus. What a name!”
My father stopped at a nursery gardener’s, and after looking over the flowers, paused before a large double geranium. “Ah! this is finer than that which your mamma was so fond of. What is the cost, sir?”
“Only 7s. 6d.,” said the gardener.