Ethelinda had had a wonderful escape, and this is how it had happened:
The jester had been so anxious about Ethelinda that he had forgotten all about the fairy, and how she had granted him his very next wish; but she, being a fairy, had to remember it. If he had only thought of it, it would have been just as easy to wish Ethelinda safe without any harm coming to himself, but he had wished 'to take her place,' and the fairy, whether she liked it or not, was obliged to keep her promise.
So the little shake which Winifred had given the table was enough to make Ethelinda roll quietly over the edge of the platform, and the jester, who never was very firm on his legs, fall forward on his face the next moment, exactly where she had lain—and either the fairy or the handkerchief over his face prevented Archie from finding out the exchange in time.
Archie tried to defend himself: 'I think she looks better with her hair cut short,' he said; 'lots of girls wear it like that. And, don't you see, Winnie, this has been a plot got up by the jester; Ethelinda was innocent all the time, and he's just nicely caught in his own trap.... That—that's the surprise!'
'I don't believe you one bit!' said Winifred. 'You had no business to cut even my jester's head off, but you meant to do much worse! I won't play with you any more, and I shan't forgive you till the very day you go back to school!'
'But, Winnie,' protested Archie, looking rather sheepish and ashamed of himself.
'Go away directly,' said Winnie, stamping her foot; 'I don't want to listen; leave me alone!'
So Archie went, not sorry, now, that an accident had kept him from doing his worst, and feeling tolerably certain that he would be able to make his cousin relent long before the time she had fixed, while Winifred, left to herself again, was so absorbed in sobbing over Ethelinda's sad disfigurement, that she quite forgot to pick up the split halves of the jester's head which were lying on the nursery floor.
That night Ethelinda had the chest of drawers all to herself, and the old Sausage Glutton grinned savagely at her from the mantelpiece, for he was disappointed at the way in which his plans had turned out.