'Good day, my pretty child!' croaked the old dame.
'Good-day to you, ma'am!' answered Priscilla politely (for she knew that it was not only right but prudent to be civil to fairies, particularly when they take the form of old women). 'But, if you please, you mustn't call me pretty—because I am not. At least,' she added, for she prided herself upon her truthfulness, 'not exactly pretty. And I should hate to be always thinking about my looks, like poor Milly—she's our housemaid, you know—and I so often have to tell her that she did not make her own face.'
'I don't alarm you, I see,' said the old crone; 'but possibly you're not aware that you're talking to a fairy?'
'Oh, yes, I am—but I'm not a bit afraid, because, you see, fairies can only hurt bad children.'
'Ah, and you're a good little child—that's not difficult to see!'
'They don't see it at home!' said Priscilla, with a sad little sigh, 'or they would listen more when I tell them of things they oughtn't to do.'
'And what things do they do that they oughtn't to, my child—if you don't mind telling me?'
'Oh, I don't mind in the least!' Priscilla hastened to assure her; and then she told the old woman all her family's faults, and the trial it was to bear with them and go on trying to induce them to mend their ways. 'And papa is getting worse than ever,' she concluded dolefully; 'only fancy, this very morning he called me a little prig!'
'Tut, tut!' said the fairy sympathetically, 'deary, deary me! So he called you that, did he?—"a little prig"! And you, too! Ah, the world's coming to a pretty pass! I suppose, now, your papa and the rest of them have got it into their heads that you are too young and too inexperienced to set up as their adviser—is that it?'