When she was out of the wood, and walking up to Crackrattle, she remembered what the Wise Woman had told her, that the first thing she saw with wings she must ask it to return with her to the hut; but the only winged creature that she noticed as she went up the valley was a large butterfly—or what she thought was a butterfly—on a great stone.
‘The Wise Woman cannot want a butterfly to go back with me to her house,’ said Betty to herself. ‘But perhaps I had better ask it to come;’ and speaking gently, so as not to frighten away the lovely thing on the stone, she said: ‘Little butterfly, please will you, for Gratitude’s sake, come with me to the Wise Woman’s hut?’ and to her amazement the tiny creature answered back:
‘Gladly will I go with you. But, excuse me, I am not a butterfly. I am one of the Lady Soft Winds whom you freed from the tangle into which the old witch threw us.’
It began to rise on its azure wings as it spoke, and as it rose Betty saw it was indeed a fairy. It had the dearest little face she had ever seen, and as for its eyes, they were bluer than its own wings, and its soft, round cheeks were a more delicate pink than the cross-leaved heath that flowered on the downs early in the summer.
It flew on beside her, and Betty was so taken up with watching it that she did not notice when she got up to Crackrattle that a dozen other fairy-like creatures were flying over the downs towards her, until they were quite close.
‘We are the Lady Soft Wind’s sisters,’ they said, ‘and out of deep gratitude to you we have come to go with you to the Wise Woman’s hut.’
‘Have you really, you little dears?’ was all Betty could find words to say. ‘Come along, then.’
And they came, and were a rhythm of colour as they flew beside her, or, as the child expressed it, ‘a little flying garland of flowers.’
Thus accompanied, Betty came to the hut, where, in the doorway, stood the Wise Woman, leaning on her stick, evidently awaiting her and her companions’ arrival.
‘We have come,’ said one of the little creatures.