They hastened home as fast as they could, and you may imagine the excitement with which their arrival was greeted. Evelyn and her mother devoured each other with kisses, and the father had such share of them as was left for him. Philip was at once restored to favour, and not only was his former silence forgiven, but every amends was made to him, in the way of diet, for his fasting upon the previous day.
Mrs. Trimmer was so rejoiced at the happy conclusion of the adventure, that she did not scold Evelyn for a month, in consequence of which her progress in French and German was visibly slower than for some time past.
Everybody in the house was glad to get the child back, and the only provoking part of it was that, even after her extraordinary adventures, disbelief in fairies still existed even in that well-informed household. One gave one explanation of Evelyn's absence, and one another; one laid it to the gipsies, another said she had run away and hid in a hollow tree, but nobody seemed to be entirely satisfied with the plain, unvarnished truth as I have told it to you.
But so it is in this wicked world. Invent a perfectly untrue story, but make it seem a little probable, and everybody will believe you, and not throw the slightest doubt upon your veracity. On the other hand, let an extraordinary thing really happen, and if it falls to your lot to tell it, you are generally considered a "story-teller" in the worst sense of the word.
This makes me so cross sometimes, that I think I will give up writing about fairies altogether, and only write about grave and serious subjects. But if I do that, I am afraid that nobody except members of parliament and diplomatists, politicians and teetotalers, and all those silly sort of people, will read what I write, and so I think I will go on for a little while longer in my old style.
I know that elves and fairies exist, and if all the rest of the world believes differently, it does not cause me the slightest inconvenience; they can go their way, and I can go mine; and if they don't see any fairies, it is probably their own fault, as it is, I am sure, their own loss.
I have no more to tell you of Philip and Evelyn now, except that they both grew up and prospered, and that Evelyn often tells her little girls the story of her adventure with the fairies; and if anyone who reads this story would like to know more particulars, she is so good-natured that I am quite sure she will tell them all about it if they will only take the trouble to ask her when she does not happen to be particularly engaged.
CAT AND DOG.
To "live like cat and dog" has long been proverbial as a description of a state of life in which quarrels and bickerings are of frequent occurrence. No one, however, as far as I am aware, has ever followed to its sources the proverb which is so familiar to us all; nor has anyone attempted to explain the reason of the antagonistic spirit which undoubtedly prevails between these domestic animals. Its prevalence is certain, its consequences not seldom unfortunate, and many a once happy household has been rendered miserable by its existence.
Animated by a sincere desire to acquire information, which might be at once interesting to myself, and instructive as well as beneficial to my fellow creatures, I have spared no pains to discover the truth upon this all-important subject; and if I can succeed in placing that truth clearly and dispassionately before the world, I shall feel—and I think I may cherish the feeling without exposing myself to the charge of presumption,—that I have not lived in vain.